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RABIH MROUÉ
I was fortunate not to have seen what the others had witnessed 

February 11, 2016 - April 23, 2016

Sfeir-Semler Gallery is proud to announce the opening of RABIH MROUÉ’s second solo show in our Hamburg space, I was fortunate not to have seen what the others had witnessed, opening Thursday February 11, 7 to 9 pm.  

Since his first solo show in the gallery in 2010, Mroué has emerged as a leading visual and performance artist, most notably participating in dOCUMENTA (13) with a multimedia installation, as well as winning the prestigious Spalding Gray Award in 2010.  

The current exhibition will present new works by the artist on the issues of war and displacement, from the 2006 war against Lebanon to the recent wars in Syria. He first presented his research on the Syrian revolution at Documenta in 2012 during the early months of its beginning - a headline that was often ignored, but now dominates all news outlets with the current refugee and humanitarian crisis. The works put into question the nature of civil wars and the horrors of displacement as visually depicted in television, print, and social media.  

The new works are derived and influenced by Mroué’s background and training in theatre-performance. Morué has constructed boxes with obscured images that can only be accessed by the observer through a looking glass, only to reveal a Pandora’s box of horrors. People stuck in the midst of catastrophes with no exit to leave. Each box includes a soundtrack, offering the viewer to re-activate the history it tells and to re-imagine its story through a personal account.  

He has created a few hundred miniature collages of the war and diaspora from current newspapers that the viewer has to peer into to see – further emphasizing the testimonial role of the mass circulated image.  

The show includes prints that have been covered only for the viewer to unveil, and videos that can only be seen and heard with the spectator’s intervention.  Mroué presents three new video works, each deconstructing the complexity of civil conflicts into the anecdotes, eccentricities, and personal struggles of the people living it. The exhibition creates a dramatic space for the viewer to have a dialogue with the stories and images presented.   

Rabih Mroué, born 1967, lives and works between Berlin and Beirut. His complex and diverse practice, spanning different disciplines and formats in between theater, performance, and visual arts, has established Mroué as a key figure in a new generation of artistic voices in Lebanon. Employing both fiction and in-depth analysis as tools for engaging with his immediate reality, Mroué explores the responsibilities of the artist in communicating with an audience in given political and cultural contexts. His works deal with issues that have been swept under the rug in the current political climate of Lebanon, connected to the enduring marks left by the Lebanese Civil War as well as more recent political events.

He has had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Mulhouse (2015); Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (2013); Kunstverein Stuttgart (2011); and BAK, Utrecht (2010). He has participated in major group exhibitions at MACBA, Barcelona (2015); SALT, Istanbul (2014); Documenta, Kassel (2012); Performa 09, New York (2009); 11th International Istanbul Biennial (2009); Queens Museum of Art, New York (2009); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008); and Tate Modern, London (2007).  He has had performances and screenings at Kampnagel, Hamburg (2011); MoMA, New York (2015); Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2000-2015); Hebbel-Theatre, Berlin (2004); and most recently his performance Ode to Joy at Kammerspiele, Munich (2016) and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2016), which is part of his current North American tour.


GALERIE SFEIR-SEMLER
www.sfeir-semler.com
Admiralitätstr. 71
D-20459 Hamburg
Tel +49-40-375 199 40
Fax +49-40-375 196 37
[email protected]

Beirut, Lebanon
Tel +961-1 566 550
Fax +961-1 566 551
[email protected]