29 January 20, 7 pm
Venue: KW Studio, front building, 1st floor
In English

Performance lecture by Jasmina Metwaly

In March 2020, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Mophradat will present two solo exhibitions by Jasmina Metwaly (born in 1982, PL) and Yazan Khalili (born in 1981, SY). A pioneering model for co-commissioning ambitious new work initiated by Mophradat, the Consortium Commissions exemplify the organization’s inventive approach to supporting artists from the Arab world.

The commissions program began with a conversation between Ramallah-based artist Yazan Khalili and Tirdad Zolghadr, Associate Curator at KW, and continues with a performance lecture by Berlin-based artist Jasmina Metwaly, which serve as a teaser and prologue to the exhibition at KW in March 2020. The exhibition’s accompanying program will further reflect the collective practices Metwaly and Khalili stand for. Metwaly is known for her work with the prominent Cairo-based video collective Mosireen, while Khalili is director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, a groundbreaking non-profit organization in Ramallah (PS).

Referring to the latest video work by Metwaly entitled Anbar (2019/2020), the evening event Anbar: in Badrawy’s studio with two uniforms and a costume will address the army uniform as genre, the iconography of Anwar Sadat (Egyptian army officer and politician who was president of Egypt from 1970 until 1981) and Egyptian military conduct in light of local cinema history. Metwaly’s Anbar is a three-channel video installation with textile components, which investigates the semantics of military uniforms in the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The work is organized around three characters—a onetime soldier, a tailor, and an activist filmmaker—who each demonstrate particular ties to the Egyptian military.