03 Feb 2014

Hamza Halloubi & Rana Hamadeh exhibitions at KIOSK

KIOSK presents a duo show with work by Lebanese artist Rana Hamadeh (1983, currently based in Rotterdam), and Moroccan artist Hamza Halloubi (1982, currently based in Brussels and Tangier). Both artists seek out the fictionalized and subjective narrative within the public reality of our existence. Their stories offer an alternative for the conventional understandings of history, language, identity and difference.

Rana Hamadeh's practice currently revolves around 'GRAPHIS N°127' and 'Alien Encounters', two overarching long-term projects in which found documents, historical events, personal encounters and fiction are interwoven in new installations, publications and lecture performances. Throughout her fictional tales and scripted performances, the artist questions the conditions of looking and interpreting, the restrictive nature and the authority of signification.

The exhibition 'A River In A Sea In A River' is a further exploration of the themes of 'Alien Encounters' by way of a theatrical scenography: a large installation in the central exhibition room presents a map and a series of objects that set out the storylines of the research at hand. The table piece can be read as a non-linear sequence of political events, associative traces and cultural constructions that problematize the notion of 'alienness' or 'alienation'. Hamadeh's fascination for the 'alien' encompasses not only the extra-terrestrial being, but also the outsider, the outlaw, and his potential for resistance. 'A River In A Sea In A River' aims for a narrative topology with an expanding cartographic network of stories, places and encounters. Hamadeh considers the installation a functional 'war map' and 'catwalk', a tailor-made tool to be employed in her lecture performances in the exhibition space.

With his video work, Hamza Halloubi aims for an essentialized reading experience. He reduces the image to its most elementary form: a cinema that captures and transforms reality. Austerely shot footage, voice-overs, familiar-looking spaces such as living rooms or theatres, and subjects like solitude, dislocation, and institution are elements that recur throughout his work. Guided by the artist-author's voice, Halloubi's work maintains a philosophical aspect that refers both to theoretical knowledge and to personal memories. After surveying a place or person in its entirety, he penetrates the surface towards a more complex history of the subject matter.

The exhibition 'Appear' is focalized around the materialization of an appearance and its inner thoughts, knowledge and memory. At KIOSK, Halloubi presents a new work in progress that takes a fascination for Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani as its starting point. Farahani plays the part of a public Hollywood personality and diva, but at the same time she is a political refugee who carefully shields her identity and personality from the public. The question as to how a figure like Farahani might appear leads to extensive research into her appearance and the various idealizations that are projected upon her by the language of cinema and media in the West and the East. The resulting portrait, 'Appear', developed from the idea of the unapproachable and the possibilities under these conditions for two people to meet directly or indirectly in front of a camera. Two more video pieces, 'Letter to Aura' (2012) and 'Apparitions à Soco Chico' (2013) relate to the same theme. 'Letter to Aura' starts from the artist's subjective narration to reflect on his specific geopolitical location. 'Apparitions à Soco Chico' questions the contemporary perception of filmed images in relation to the history of cinema.