VCUarts Qatar announces Wavelength lecture series for 2022

VCUarts Qatar has announced the next series of Wavelength lectures scheduled for the latter half of 2022.

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme will deliver the first online talk today at 7 pm (Doha time). The talks are free and open to the public, and those interested can register at https://icavcu.org/events/wavelength-ruanne-basel/

The duo will present an overview of their work and their practice over the years, discussing past installations and exhibitions that span sound, image, text, installation, and performance.  

The two Palestinian artists are renowned for their repertoire of creative works that “probe the contemporary landscape marked by a seemingly perpetual crisis and an endless ‘present’; one that is shaped by a politics of desire and disaster”. The result is a practice that investigates the political, visceral, and material possibilities of sound, image, text, and site, taking on the form of multi-media installations and live sound/image performances.

Their work has been exhibited at Migros Museum (Zurich), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Art Institute of Chicago, Kunstverein Hamburg, Krannert Art Museum (Illinois), ICA (Philadelphia), Office for Contemporary Art (Oslo), Carroll/Fletcher (London), Akademie Der Kuenste Der Welt (Cologne), Delfina Foundation (London), Kunstgebaude Stuttgart, The Mistake Room (Los Angeles), SeMa Biennale (Seoul), and at art and design biennials in Jerusalem and Venice.

They were fellows at Akademie der Kunste der Welt in Cologne in 2013 and artists in residence at the Delfina Foundation, London in 2009. They are recipients of the New York Artadia Prize in 2021, the Sharjah Biennale Prize in 2015, and The Abraaj Prize in 2016. Their most recent publication ‘And Yet my Mask Is Powerful’ is published by Printed Matter in New York.

Meera Badran, VCUarts Qatar’s Exhibitions and Lectures Assistant, said, “We are very excited to be hosting this Wavelength lecture by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, whose work is not only beautiful and current, but extremely urgent, focusing on politics of desire and disaster and examining how communities bear witness to experiences of violence, loss, displacement, and forced migration, specifically in the Middle East.”

The talk will be moderated by Peter Welz, Adjunct Faculty, Painting + Printmaking, VCUarts Qatar. Welz became known for a five-part video installation created in close collaboration with choreographer William Forsythe. In 2020, Welz was one of 117 Berlin-based artists represented in the Studio Berlin exhibition at the Berghain techno club. Works by Peter Welz can be found in the Goetz Collection, the Falckenberg Collection, the collection of the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others.

Wavelength is an online lecture series that is a collaboration between VCUarts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Richmond, and VCUarts Qatar. Each year, the lecture series kicks off with the start of the new academic year, bringing the public in touch with a dynamic group of artists, designers, curators, and scholars as they share their work with the VCU communities in Richmond and Doha.

The second talk will be delivered by photographer Patrice Helmar, Visiting Associate Professor, Pratt School of Art, on November 15, at 7 pm (Doha Time).