Photography Professor Walid Raad’s Work and Career Covered by MSN, ARTnews, and Others
Artist and professor of photography at Bard, Walid Raad
The paintings, drawings, and photographs of Walid Raad, artist and professor of photography at Bard, were included in this year’s prestigious Venice Biennale. These works, and Raad’s noteworthy 40-year career, were featured in recent articles by MSN, ARTnews, and USA Art News.
Raad, who is based out of Beirut and New York, often draws from his experiences coming of age in war-torn Lebanon, and the ongoing social and political developments the Middle East. His works also play with documentary fact and creative imagination or embellishment, leading to works that are difficult to describe or summarize, laden with references through seemingly inane or inocuous subjects, like beds or cakes. The context of the items adds intrigue and meaning—the cakes, for example, are fictitious birthday cakes for highly controversial political figures, such as Benjamin Netanyahu; the beds are those said to have been slept in by Yasser Arafat, the former leader of the PLO. “[He] is said to have never slept in the same bed two nights in a row,” said Raad, who spent 30 years searching for the beds.
The articles also dive deeply into the concepts behind Raad’s work, and his “unique methodology.” For US Art News, Sarah Mitchell cites a description of his work as “a form of surrealism for the information age, giving playful form to misinformation without reproducing fake news,” adding that “clues to the constructed nature of his documents are often found ‘at the edges.’”
Raad teaches through the Photography Program at Bard College, which offers instruction in the medium while providing a historical and aesthetic framework for student development within the context of a broad-based liberal arts education.
Post Date: 10-28-2026
Raad, who is based out of Beirut and New York, often draws from his experiences coming of age in war-torn Lebanon, and the ongoing social and political developments the Middle East. His works also play with documentary fact and creative imagination or embellishment, leading to works that are difficult to describe or summarize, laden with references through seemingly inane or inocuous subjects, like beds or cakes. The context of the items adds intrigue and meaning—the cakes, for example, are fictitious birthday cakes for highly controversial political figures, such as Benjamin Netanyahu; the beds are those said to have been slept in by Yasser Arafat, the former leader of the PLO. “[He] is said to have never slept in the same bed two nights in a row,” said Raad, who spent 30 years searching for the beds.
The articles also dive deeply into the concepts behind Raad’s work, and his “unique methodology.” For US Art News, Sarah Mitchell cites a description of his work as “a form of surrealism for the information age, giving playful form to misinformation without reproducing fake news,” adding that “clues to the constructed nature of his documents are often found ‘at the edges.’”
Raad teaches through the Photography Program at Bard College, which offers instruction in the medium while providing a historical and aesthetic framework for student development within the context of a broad-based liberal arts education.
Post Date: 10-28-2026