[Nettime-ro] Rabih MrouÃ: I, the Undersigned The People Are Demanding

[Cosmin Costinas <cosmincostinas2004@yahoo.com>]

Rabih MrouÃ
I, the Undersigned The People Are Demanding
23 March â 14 May 2011
Presented by Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) at Rivington Place


I,
 the Undersigned The People Are Demanding is the radical reformulation, 
in the light of the 2011 Arab Revolution, of Rabih MrouÃ's first solo 
show I, the Undersigned at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht in 
2010, curated by Cosmin Costinas.  

Two existing works, three new
 productions realized for this exhibition as well as an altered work 
offer insights into MrouÃâs approach to dealing with history and memory.
 Often based on found documents such as newspaper clippings, video 
footage, and photographs that the artist has accumulated over the years 
in his own personal archiveâcomprising, in his own words, memory that 
exhausts himâMrouÃâs works are in fact occasions to constructively 
âeraseâ the weight of such histories by sharing them publicly. 

The
 new work The People Are Demanding, 2011, lends its title to the 
exhibition, replacing the erased title of an older work,  I, the 
Undersigned, 2007. "The people are demanding" are the first words of the
 main slogan being heard on the streets in the ongoing Arab Revolution, 
having started from the unambiguous "The people are demanding the fall 
of the regime", to different other versions, incorporating shifting sets
 of demands.  "the people are demanding the resignation of the 
prime-minister", "the people are demanding immediate elections", "the 
people are demanding the hanging of the king", etc. Mrouà places the 
main subject and verb of this slogan on the street windows of INIVA, 
completing it with a long series of one verb demands that range from the
 most radical ones to the most mundane and basic human actions and 
desires. This twist reveals the ambivalence that is to be found in the 
work - as well as in the alteration of the title of the exhibition - 
both acknowledging the extraordinary revival of a sense of popular unity
 and action but also commenting on the fragility of subjectivity under 
the pressure of the unleashed forces of history and on the dangers of 
the totalizing 'people'. The erasure in the title finds a correspondent 
in the exhibition where the work I, the Undersigned, 2007, has been 
removed, only traces of it being visible to the public. Originally, it 
contained the artistâs striking apology for his part in the Lebanese 
Civil War. However in these days of revolutionary upheaval and of masses
 coming together for (temporary) common purposes, the artist considers 
the subjective 'I' to be suspended, half-voluntarily, half under an 
accepted pressure. 

In the words of Rabih MrouÃ: "The work âI, 
the Undersignedâ was supposed to be here. It is an installation which 
consists of two monitors and one wall text that draws attention to the 
intentional disregard of those responsible for the Lebanese civil wars 
and their refusal to give any apology to their people for all that they 
committed during the wars (1975-1990). Beside this text, one monitor 
shows my personal apologies for what I did during those years, and 
another monitor shows my face staring at you.

I decided not to 
show this work today due to the radical changes, struggles, conflicts, 
revolutions and turmoil of a geopolitical and sociopolitical nature that
 are going on in my region. These changes pushed me to change the title 
of this exhibition from âI, the Undersignedâ to âThe People are 
Demandingâ; from âIâ to âWeâ â as I believe that I belong to the people.
 But âIâ seems to me not to be changing while âWeâ is changing very 
fast. Between that âIâ and this âWeâ there is a big red question mark."


      
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