"I Heard You Laughing", Zürich University of The Arts. April 6 2017.

Ferhat Özgür "I Can Sing", 2008, video still.

After the video series at Galerie Gregor Staiger-Zürich, we are happy to announce a talk and screening event at the Zurich University of the Arts to conclude the program.

Screening & Talk at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
With Myriam Ben Salah & Martha Kirszenbaum
‘I HEARD YOU LAUGHING’
April 6, 2017, 7PM

PROGRAM

Bendaly Family, Do You Love Me? , 1978, 3:32 min
Meriem Bennani, Fly, 2016, 17:32 min
Fairuz, Laylit Eid (Jingle Bells), c.1965, 2:51 min
Sarah Abu Abdallah, Out to Lunch, 2013, 9:54 min
Dor Zlekha Levy, The Tarab Prince, 2014, 1:49 min
Ferhat Özgür, ‘I Can Sing’, 2008, 7 min
Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid Al Gharaballi, MENDEEL UM A7MAD (NxIxSxM), 2012, 15:50 min
Googoosh, Pishkesh, live on Manoto TV, 1972, 3:30 min

Toni Areal KINO, 3. Floor, Room 3.G03

Artists from the Middle East are often associated with narratives of struggle and rhetoric of the past. Some end up making works that are almost a response to a Western “tacit commission”—as coined by Moroccan scholar Mohamed Rachdi—arbitrarily linking authenticity with traumatic storytelling. ‘I Heard You Laughing’ borrows its title from 14th century Persian poet Hafez’s book “I Heard God Laughing,” where he lauded the joys of love, humor and irony, three clogged pillars of Middle-Eastern culture that are making a controversial comeback in the works of a younger generation of artists from the region.
The screening reflects on the importance of popular culture, the omnipresence of technologies and the role of music and dance, while tackling a form of vernacular disorientalism and conveying a certain digital cosmopolitanism. It comprises selected music videos from iconic Middle-Eastern musicians of the 1950s-60s-70s alongside video works by contemporary artists that reflect the complexities of this often oversimplified ‘East-West’ configuration

MARTHA KIRSZENBAUM (b.1983, Vitry-sur-Seine, France) is a curator and writer based in Los Angeles, where she was the Director and Curator of Fahrenheit, an exhibition space and residency program (2014-16). She graduated from Sciences Po in Paris and Columbia University in New York, and worked at Media Department of MoMA in New York (2006-07), the Photography Department of Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2007) and at the New Museum in New York (2008-10). Additionally, she collaborated with the Center for Contem- porary Art in Warsaw, the Belvedere Museum/21er Haus in Vienna, the Marrakech Biennale, Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the Kunsthalle Mulhouse. Kirszenbaum is a regular contributor to Flash Art, CURA, Kaleidoscope and Mousse, and has led seminars on curatorial practice at the Université Paris VIII and Parsons, Paris.

MYRIAM BEN SALAH (b.1985, Algiers, Algeria) is a curator and writer based in Paris, where she has been coordinating special projects and public programs at Palais de Tokyo since 2009, focusing especially on performance art, video and publishing initiatives. She is the Editor in Chief of KALEIDOSCOPE magazine’s International Edition. She co-edits F.A.Q., a periodical image-only magazine with artist Maurizio Cattelan, and her writings have appeared in numerous international art publications. Her latest curatorial projects include Cool Memories (Occidental Temporary, Paris, 2016), Like the Desert Miss the Real (Galerie Steinek as part of « Curated-by », Vienna, 2015), Dirty Linen (DESTE Foundation at the Benaki Museum, Athens, 2015), Shit and Die (Palazzo Cavour as part of Artissima collateral program, Turin, 2014).

Hosted by BA Art & Media

Zürcher Hochschule der Künste
Zurich University of the Arts
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Zurich University of the Arts, Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, P.O. Box, CH-8031 Zurich