Walid Raad’s Atlas Group (1989–2004) examines the social, political, psychological and aesthetic dimensions of the Lebanese wars through the collection, organization and production of archival documentation. Set up as an archive that includes notebooks, films, videotapes and other objects, Raad’s Atlas Group destabilizes the tenuous boundaries of objectivity and truth.
Presented in this exhibition are Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English Version), a documentary about Souheil Bachar, the only Arab kidnapped with five Western hostages in Beirut in 1985, and I Only Wish That I Could Weep, a video found in the camera of a secret agent (Operator #17) who was posted on a beach road in Beirut to watch for an assigned target. Playing with the conventions of documentary forms, Raad’s project unfolds along a line entangled in fact and fiction, exploring the tenuous boundaries of representing truth.
