Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar) announced the next series of Wavelength lectures scheduled for this month and in November.
Featuring Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, the first online talk is scheduled on 20 September, free and open to the public. The duo will present an overview of their work and practice over the years, discussing past installations and exhibitions that span sound, image, text, installation, and performance.
Those interested may register here.
The next one will be delivered by Visiting Associate Professor from Pratt School of Art, photographer Patrice Helmar, on 15 November.
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
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 also fellows at Akademie der Kunste der Welt in Cologne in 2013 and artists in residence at the Delfina Foundation, London in 2009. They are also 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.
VCUarts Qatar Exhibitions and Lectures Assistant Meera Badran said they are very excited to be hosting this Wavelength lecture by Abbas and 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 VCUarts Qatar Painting + Printmaking Adjunct Faculty Peter Welz, known for a five-part video installation he created in close collaboration with choreographer William Forsythe. Welz was one of 117 Berlin-based artists represented in the Studio Berlin exhibition at the Berghain techno club in 2020. His works 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 lectures
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.
VCUarts Qatar is a partner university of Qatar Foundation.
For more details about events at VCUarts Qatar, visit qatar.vcu.edu.
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