Mounira al Solh
Invited by Dr. Matthias Mühling
13 Nov - 09 Dec 2010
»RAWANE'S SONG« (2006)
The video, Rawane’s Song, by Lebanese artist Mounira Al Solh (*1978) tells the story of a refusal. It’s the artist’s refusal, and her inability, to deal with the reality of war in her works. While the camera follows the artist’s footsteps moving about faster and faster on the floor of her studio, we hear her voice from offstage. She is reporting on the efforts behind her artistic production so far. It’s a report on the difficult situation that arises from not being able to use either her ethnic or her social identity as a driving force or as a starting point for her work. It’s all a muddle, which in addition appears to disappoint expectations directed by curators, collectors or the public towards a Lebanese artist. The artist becomes a prisoner of her audience’s projections, which are rooted in what they sense as exoticism. The intelligent as well as entertaining negation we experience in Rawane’s song is a way out, as what seems a denial of the subject serves all the more strongly as a means for shifting it into the foreground. Mounira Al Solh paints the self-portrait of an artist »ex negativo«.
Text: Matthias Mühling
The video, Rawane’s Song, by Lebanese artist Mounira Al Solh (*1978) tells the story of a refusal. It’s the artist’s refusal, and her inability, to deal with the reality of war in her works. While the camera follows the artist’s footsteps moving about faster and faster on the floor of her studio, we hear her voice from offstage. She is reporting on the efforts behind her artistic production so far. It’s a report on the difficult situation that arises from not being able to use either her ethnic or her social identity as a driving force or as a starting point for her work. It’s all a muddle, which in addition appears to disappoint expectations directed by curators, collectors or the public towards a Lebanese artist. The artist becomes a prisoner of her audience’s projections, which are rooted in what they sense as exoticism. The intelligent as well as entertaining negation we experience in Rawane’s song is a way out, as what seems a denial of the subject serves all the more strongly as a means for shifting it into the foreground. Mounira Al Solh paints the self-portrait of an artist »ex negativo«.
Text: Matthias Mühling