Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué

The Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain and the Festival d'Automne à Paris present this programme in co-realisation.

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.

In Before Falling Seek the Assistance of Your Cane (2022), Rabih Mroué questions the nature of works of art in the public space, and in particular those instances when the object in question finds itself in direct contact with the real. Thus, a leaflet dropped into the air by a military plane warning of an imminent bombing, and which is presented in an exhibition, might result in the venue being evacuated by the police. N'importe où (2007) pays homage to the female poet Etel Adnan as well as the male poet Abbas Beydoun, two prominent Lebanese literary figures. Rima Khcheich sings their poems in the classical Arabic musical vein, while Rabih Mroué on flute and Tony Overwater on double bass summon up a hybrid counterpoint tinged with pop and jazz. In the Appendice (2007) conference, Lina Majdalanie confronts herself with her unattainable wish to be cremated upon her death. In Lebanon, funeral rituals are exclusively managed by the different religious authorities, and the practice of cremation is against the law. How can we find the alternative means to arrive at our ends?

Programme:

• Monday, November 18, 7:30pm: Rabih Mroué, Before Falling Seek the Assistance of Your Cane
• Monday, November 25, 7:30pm: Rima Khcheich, Rabih Mroué, Tony Overwater, N'importe où
• Monday, December 2, 7:30pm: Lina Majdalanie, Appendice

Production: The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan (Beyrouth), Festival d’Automne à Paris.

Thanks: Fadi Abdallah, Albert Abi Azar, Mansour Aziz, Rémi Bonhomme, Toni Chakar, Lama Charafeddine, Ali Cherri, Marie Collin, Joanna Hadjithomas, Hatem Imam, Khalil Joreige, Bernard Khoury, Krystel Khoury, Nathalie Khoury, Jalal El Mir, Tarek Mrad, Hania Mroué (Cinema Metropolis Beyrouth), Rabih Mroué, Walid Raad, Celesta Rottiers, Hussein Saleh, Andrée Sfeir (Galerie Sfeir-Semler), Mounira El Solh, Christine Tohmé and Jalal Toufic.