ART-PRESENTATION: Bouchra Khalili-22 Hours/The Tempest Society
In her work in film, installation, and print Bouchra Khalili has spent over ten years examining strategies and discourses of resistance of minorities, elaborating platforms from which their voices can be heard. Her protagonists speak from their own personal situations, formulate narratives of protest in their own languages and gradually join together to form one large, collective voice.
By Dimitris Lempesis Photo: Museum Folkwang Archive
Two video installations by Bouchra Khalili are on presentation at Museum Folkwang. Her work is devoted to political topics; they portray members of different political minorities and their strategies of resistance. Khalili constantly re-articulates the connections between subjectivity and collective history, examining the complex relationships between the individual, his duties as a citizen and belonging to a society. Her new video installation “22 Hours” has its starting point in Jean Genet’s lasting support for revolutionary movements: in his writings the French author repeatedly expressed solidarity with the oppressed from all over the world, referring for example to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the civil rights movement founded in 1966 for African-American rights. In Bouchra Khalili’s video installation, two African-American women question the legacy of the African-American struggle for equal rights then and now, as well as well the position of the radical ally, as embodied by Genet. What traces remain of this history? How can we describe the essential link between the power of language and issues of self-representation? How do our history and its poetry influence our current existence and what do they tell us of the spirit of our time? Bouchra Khalili also presents “The Tempest Society”, this was her contribution to documenta 14 in 2017: three Athenians from different backgrounds form a group to examine the current state of Europe. They meet on the stage of a former factory turned into a theatrical space. They call themselves “The Tempest Society” in homage to Al Assifa (in Arabic: “the storm”) a theatre company founded in Paris in the 1970s by North African immigrant workers and French students. Their forgotten legacy is now revived: on a theatre stage the “Tempest Society” demands equal rights, citizen participation and solidarity.
Info: Museum Folkwang, Museumsplatz 1, Essen, Duration: 24/8-21/10/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 10:00-20:00, www.museum-folkwang.de
Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society (Video still), 2017, video, 60 minutes, A commission of the documenta 14, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, Co-production Ibsen Awards, Ibsen Theater-Skien Norway, With the support of the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques and Plastiques-Paris and the Holland Festival-Amsterdam, Special thanks to the Athens Festival, Atopos cvc (Athens)
Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society (Video still), 2017, video, 60 minutes, A commission of the documenta 14, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, Co-production Ibsen Awards, Ibsen Theater-Skien Norway, With the support of the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques and Plastiques-Paris and the Holland Festival-Amsterdam, Special thanks to the Athens Festival, Atopos cvc (Athens)
Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society (Video still), 2017, video, 60 minutes, A commission of the documenta 14, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, Co-production Ibsen Awards, Ibsen Theater-Skien Norway, With the support of the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques and Plastiques-Paris and the Holland Festival-Amsterdam, Special thanks to the Athens Festival, Atopos cvc (Athens)
Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society (Video still), 2017, video, 60 minutes, A commission of the documenta 14, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, Co-production Ibsen Awards, Ibsen Theater-Skien Norway, With the support of the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques and Plastiques-Paris and the Holland Festival-Amsterdam, Special thanks to the Athens Festival, Atopos cvc (Athens)
Bouchra Khalili, Twenty-Two Hours (Video still), 2018, video, 43 minutes, A commission of the Ruhrtriennale, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, With the support of the Oslo National Art Academy, the Harvard Film Study Center and the Vienna Secession, Special thanks to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston
Bouchra Khalili, Twenty-Two Hours (Video still), 2018, video, 43 minutes, A commission of the Ruhrtriennale, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, With the support of the Oslo National Art Academy, the Harvard Film Study Center and the Vienna Secession, Special thanks to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston
Bouchra Khalili, Twenty-Two Hours (Video still), 2018, video, 43 minutes, A commission of the Ruhrtriennale, Film & Edit Bouchra Khalili, Production Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann, With the support of the Oslo National Art Academy, the Harvard Film Study Center and the Vienna Secession, Special thanks to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston
In her work in film, installation, and print Bouchra Khalili has spent over ten years examining strategies and discourses of resistance of minorities, elaborating platforms from which their voices can be heard. Her protagonists speak from their own personal situations, formulate narratives of protest in their own languages and gradually join together to form one large, collective voice.
