Rabih Mroué

The Inhabitants of Images

ConferenceTheatre Portrait
Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette
septembersept 21

1h

In English, with French surtitles

Prices € 8 and € 12
Subscribers € 8

Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette

Saturday september 21

19h00

A non-academic lecture by Rabih Mroué. Translation in English Ziad Nawfal. Translation in French Jean-Luc Defromont.

Coproduction Tanzquartier Wien GmbH ; Bidoun ; The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan (Beirut)

Lafayette Anticipations and the Festival d'Automne à Paris present this programme in co-realisation. 
As part of Lafayette Anticipations' Échelle Humaine festival, organised with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation - Delegation in France. 

With the support of

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

In The Inhabitants of Images (2008) Rabih Mroué, in the capacity of pseudo-speaker once again, mixes together, making no distinction between them, politics, fiction and reality, by commenting on a series of pictures. On the one hand we see the supposed, technically impossible, meeting between Gamal Abdel Nasser and Rafic Hariri, two deceased political leaders. On the other hand, we are presented with the photographs of Hezbollah "martyrs" plastered across the streets of Beirut. Together, they provide the speaker with material with which he can develop observations, the improbable nature of which does not make them any less relevant.

Interview with Lina Majdalanie & Rabih Mroué

See also

Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette
septembersept 20

Rabih Mroué
Make Me Stop Smoking

ConferenceTheatre Portrait
Buy tickets

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette
septembersept 22

Rabih Mroué
Sand in the Eyes

ConferenceTheatre Portrait
Buy tickets

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

Théâtre de la Ville – Sarah Bernhardt
septembersept 23 - 28

Rabih Mroué
Who’s Afraid of Representation?

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

We find ourselves in the company of major figures of European Body Art (Joseph Beuys, Orlan, Marina Abramović, to name a few) via their accounts of exhibitions and public scarifications dating back to the 1970s. In parallel with this runs the true story of a killing spree carried out by a Lebanese office at his workplace, and the fluctuating motivations for his acts.

Théâtre Silvia Monfort
octoberoct 16 - 18

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué, Mazen Kerbaj
Borborygmus

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

Set to a complex score of sound and light, a trio sets about uttering phrases of a visceral nature, creating an outlandish, chorus-like effect. Each sequence emerges, bouncing off an impromptu connection, thereby developing a new theme - ranging from distraught observations, memories, tributes, apocalyptic visions, and intimate observations, to unspeakable experiences.

Théâtre de la Cité internationale
octoberoct 22 - 25

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué
Photo-Romance

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

How do we go about presenting the adaptation of a famous film to the Lebanese authorities in charge of censorship? We come to realize that it is about a film which recounts the improbable encounter between two very dissimilar individuals both of whom are experiencing social alienation in fascist Italy in 1938. The adaptation is set in Beirut in 2007, shortly after an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
novembernov 13 - 16

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué
Biokhraphia

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia et Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
novembernov 13 - 16

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué
Riding on a cloud

Theatre
Buy tickets

These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia and Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.

Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
novembernov 18

Rabih Mroué
Before Falling Seek the Assistance of Your Cane

ConferencePerformance Portrait
Buy tickets

The Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué duo presents two “non-academic conferences” and a concert-performance in collaboration with Rima Khcheich. Rabih Mroué makes frequent use of the former concept in order to create presentations which adopt the various mechanisms of the conference format whilst opening them up to the various possibilities of performance. In doing so, the duo plays upon the ambiguity which is inherent in this form of subversion. Added to this, for the first time, is an artistic proposition featuring poems set to music.

Théâtre du Rond-Point
novembernov 22 - 24

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué
33 tours et quelques secondes

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

Who is Diyaa Yamout, the Lebanese human rights activist, artist and blogger whose suicide shook the nation? We will never really know and this is not what matters. Indeed, what is far more fascinating here is the profusion of assorted reactions on Facebook, the television, and in the form of SMS and answering machine messages

Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
novembernov 25

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué, Rima Khcheich
N'importe où

ConferencePerformance Portrait
Buy tickets

The Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué duo presents two “non-academic conferences” and a concert-performance in collaboration with Rima Khcheich. Rabih Mroué makes frequent use of the former concept in order to create presentations which adopt the various mechanisms of the conference format whilst opening them up to the various possibilities of performance. In doing so, the duo plays upon the ambiguity which is inherent in this form of subversion. Added to this, for the first time, is an artistic proposition featuring poems set to music.

CENTQUATRE-PARIS
decemberdec 4 - 8

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué
Quatre murs et un toit

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

In 1947, the trial of German playwright Bertolt Brecht took place in the United States in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), responsible for combating communist activism. It was here that Brecht wrote a declaration which he was forbidden to read out. The minutes of the trial, as well as this declaration, constitute one of the axes of this exuberant show.

Fondation Fiminco
decemberdec 16 - 20

Rabih Mroué, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
A little bit of the moon

DancePerformance Portrait
Buy tickets

As part of a special invitation by the Festival d'Automne, choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and director Rabih Mroué shared, over the course of ten months, their thoughts, concerns, doubts, and questions regarding politics, art and life. After numerous exchanges by videoconference, the two artists now come together on the site of the former industrial complex, the new home of the Fiminco Foundation. Together, for the duration of a performance, they will be drawing up the plans for a new world for all.

In the same place

Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette
septembersept 20

Rabih Mroué
Make Me Stop Smoking

ConferenceTheatre Portrait
Buy tickets

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette
septembersept 21 - 22
Musée de l’Orangerie
octoberoct 14

Dalila Belaza
Figures (version performative)

Dance
Buy tickets

In Figures, Dalila Belaza looks into the possibility of a universal rite, by inventing an imaginary traditional dance "without origin or territory" that links the present to eternity. This force takes possession of the body, echoing a heritage that each of us carries with us, often unconsciously.

Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette
septembersept 22

Rabih Mroué
Sand in the Eyes

ConferenceTheatre Portrait
Buy tickets

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.