In the Presence / Absence of Mazen Kerbaj

“In the Presence / Absence of Mazen Kerbaj”
Curated by Hatem Imam
28.02. – 17.05.2020

Opening: Thursday, 27.02.2020, 19:00
Artist Talk: Friday, 28.02.2020, 16:00

Mazen Kerbaj’s art deploys two tropes that are not uncommon in underground comics: auto-biography and politics. An amalgamation
of the personal and the historical. However, it extends beyond the panels of comics, it settles in space, and is performed
through the political body of the artist. Mazen is not only a witness, he is an actor. This show combining new and old works, and put together in this formation for the first time, draws parallels in time, medium, and space. The pieces are put in dialogue, where an idea hastily scribbled on a restaurant’s placemat can be seen continued
or developed in a live drawing video. It is like entering a room with a legion of Mazen Kerbajs talking, drawing, arguing,
and drinking together. Each one of them is the record of a particular moment and a new place; on a spectrum of sobriety;
in a varying tongue; and also rendered in a different medium. Kerbaj is always on the move, and movement is both a condition of his work, and its subject.