Perseus Beheading Medusa

For this series, Wafaa Bilal reproduced a dozen of the most recognizable sculptures in Western art history—here you see replicas of Michelangelo’s David (1501–1504) and Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa (c. 1554)—on a scale not much larger than tourist souvenirs. Bilal made his figures of resin and coated them with shrink wrap and slick enamel, all products of the petroleum industry. The work responds to recent destruction by ISIS of ancient Assyrian sites, including Palmyra in Syria and Nimrud in Bilal’s home country of Iraq, raising critical questions about human impulses to destroy and to preserve cultural heritage and competing values that inform these decisions.