Theater with Dirty Feet: A Talk on Theater into Art, 2009

Rabih Mroué
Theater with Dirty Feet: A Talk on Theater into Art, 2009
Photo by Alfredo Rubio

Biography

Rabih Mroué is also a co-founder and a board member of the Beirut Art Center (BAC), Beirut. Mroué’s work often explores sensitive and complex issues related to the impact of Lebanese history and politics on the contemporary life of the nation. However, his philosophical and aesthetic enquiry into the communicative responsibility of the artist enables his work to transcend political and cultural contexts. This is at the heart of his diverse, disciplined and constantly evolving practice in which theatre, film, performance and both visual and written arts are used to connect audiences to the immediate human reality of the artist. For Past of the Coming Days Mroué presented Theatre with Dirty Feet, a theatrical performance piece on the subject of theatre and art which ultimately questioned both the nature and purpose of itself.

Among his many performance works are Photo-Romance (with Lina Saneh, 2009), The Inhabitants of Images (2008), How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke (2007), and Make Me Stop Smoking (2006). Mroué’s work has been internationally performed, exhibited or screened extensively including at the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2010), House of World Cultures, Berlin (2010), 11th International Istanbul Biennial (2009), Queens Museum of Art, New York (2009), International Foundation Manifesta, Amsterdam (2008), Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2008) and Tate Modern, London (2007). His visual art practice has recently been showcased at BAK, Utrect in a solo exhibition I, the Undersigned (2010).

Rabih Mroué was born in 1967 in Beirut and currently lives and works in Beirut. He received The Grant Award for Performing Arts, 2010 from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, and the 2010 Spalding Gray Award.

November 2010

This person was part of Sharjah Biennial 9 and 13.