The Beatles meet Ghaddafi and his peers, thanks to a new project by Michael Rakowitz, titled “The Breakup” and on view now at Lombard Freid Projects in New York. The objects in the show (including this collaged album cover) are mementos, almost, of a ten-part radio series that Rakowitz did for an art center in Jerusalem: He mashed up the story of the rise and fall of the great British band with the story of hopes, and hopes shattered, in the Middle East during the Beatles era. At Lombard Freid, I especially liked a video of the final moment in the Jerusalem project, in which aging Palestinian rockers played Beatles songs in a Middle Eastern style, on a rooftop overlooking the multi-confessional Dome of the Rock – echoed on-screen by shots of the Beatles’ last performance on a rooftop in London.
For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.