Rayenne Tabet: Alien Property

Unknown Hittite carver, Orthostat relief: seated figure holding a lotus flower, ca. 10th−9th century B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,

This exhibition tells the story of the ninth-century B.C. stone reliefs excavated in the early twentieth century at Tell Halaf, Syria by the German diplomat and amateur archaeologist Baron Max von Oppenheim, and their subsequent destruction, loss, or dispersal to museum collections around the world. Examining the circuitous journey four of these reliefs took to arrive at The Met under the aegis of the World War II–era Alien Property Custodian Act, the presentation also highlights the very personal connection of the reliefs to contemporary artist Rayyane Tabet who in 2017 began making rubbings of the existing orthostats. So far, he has created rubbings of thirty-two basalt reliefs in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin; the Louvre Museum, Paris; the Walters Museum, Baltimore; and The Met.