| Description |
Between 21 May and 1 August, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst presents I, the Undersigned, the first solo exhibition by Lebanese theater director, playwright, actor, and visual artist Rabih Mroué.
Mroué belongs to the artistic generation that matured after the (formal) end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990, and his work has been deeply influenced by the ongoing conflicts in the country and the Middle East region, as well as by political and cultural issues such as identity construction, historical narration, exclusion, and remembrance. As such, the artist’s practice is as much representative of, as it is divergent from, these complex circumstances.
Coming from a theater background, Mroué has explored different genealogies of the realm of performance, referring both to a tradition of critical theater in line with Brechtian methods and to performance art connected to the developments in western contemporary art over the last half century. His practice escapes disciplinary frameworks by mixing of methods and cultural cannons, by complicating the distinctions between fiction and reality, and by blending past “facts” with speculation about the current moment.
Mroué’s work can be seen as a constant exploration of the artist’s responsibility and position both in artistic frameworks limited by traditional conventions and in political circumstances that are based on principles of exclusion. Some of the main questions accompanying his practice can be formulated as follows: How to express truth through fiction? Can artistic subjectivity create a communal, meaningful, and ethically grounded exchange with a public, in a society where individuals are divided by their religious and political outlooks? How can one establish dialogue in a traumatized society, aware of this reality but not falling into the trap of disconsolate mourning, as the politics of memory is often seen in contexts that have experienced historical trauma?
I, the Undersigned is an extensive survey of Rabih Mroué's practice, including a number of new installations presented along with his recent works. The exhibition is curated by Cosmin Costinas. |