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Families Together Cooperative Nursery School – 2014 Families Together Annual Online Auction
Auction Ends: Mar 16, 2014 11:00 PM CDT

Art



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Michael Rakowitz - The Breakup

Item Number
326
Estimated Value
50 USD
Sold
20 USD to tm7930e55
Number of Bids
1  -  Bid History

Item Description

"A re-issued, limited edition vinyl LP record contains Palestinian band SABREEN’s cover of five of the Beatles’ late songs, selected to form a poetic meditation on collaboration and collapse."

The LP forms a take-home part of "The Breakup," in which Michael Rakowitz conflates the break-up of the Beatles with the breakdown of Middle Eastern relations, questioning the essence of human and diplomatic relationships and the possibility of repairing torn connections. The multi-dimensional project evolved from a 10-episode radio program commissioned by the Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem, and broadcast over the Palestinian Radio Amwaj in 2010. Listeners who initially tuned in to the prime-time airing, likely waiting at checkpoints to cross contentious borders on their way home from work, heard Rakowitz dissect the dissolution of the Beatles. Interwoven with historical events, the narrative takes its audience from John Lennon’s 1940 birth amid the Blitz to the band’s dénouement and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s coincidental death in 1970. Mined from hours of tapes recording the “Fab Four’s” conversations during their final days, Rakowitz’s archaeological study reveals the band’s desperate attempt to reconstruct unity through performing in an exotic location. The come-back concert idea, which sparked Rakowitz’s allegory, went as far as the band booking amphitheaters in Tunisia and Libya before it collapsed into a miserly rooftop performance. The account relayed in The Breakup addresses much more than a fan’s nostalgia for his favorite band; “you know, like when a song about lost love can be about a lost country.”

“Get Back,” the last song the Beatles played in their final Rooftop Concert, presents the stakes at hand in Rakowitz’s quest, underlined in the radio program when he as narrator repeats a phrase heard in the ’69 tapes: “you mustn’t try and get back what you had.” The artist’s own family migrated to the United States after his grandfather was exiled from Iraq in 1946, and his practice addresses Middle Eastern relations through work that functions beyond the fine art context. Entering the arena of life, politics, and rock & roll, The Breakup investigates nostalgia and fanaticism and asks the central question: “Why not? Why must it be so impossible to get back, to get back home?”"

Item Special Note

Donated by FTCNS parent Michael Rakowitz

http://michaelrakowitz.com/

Available for pickup from Families Together, Chicago IL, 60660

Shipping available at buyer's expense

 

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