Walid Raad: Cotton Under My Feet

A semi-fictional performative account of the lives and archives of a legendary Spanish art collection

How does a private art collection become public? Who was Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza? These questions are at the heart of Cotton under My Feet, a new project by New York-based Lebanese artist Walid Raad (born 1967) conceived for the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, coinciding with the centennial of its original founder. From the depths of the museum’s archives, Raad unearthed fragments of stories, fictional documents and puzzling artifacts. Brought to life through a slippery narrative–a lavishly illustrated performance script forms the centerpiece of the volume–Raad invites readers to follow him into the tunnels of conjecture he has constructed, offering a vertiginous reflection on the potential legacy of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collections and their relation to the histories of Western and non-Western art.