Born of a Christian mother and Muslim father, Brussels-based French-Moroccan artist Mehdi-Georges Lahlou learned early on the value of relativism. The theme of crossing boundaries set by culture, religion and gender is present in all of his installations and performances. While his works appears at first sight political, for instance tackling Orientalism and gender issues in Islam, it is important to the artist that it be viewed first and foremost as an open, poetic autobiographical gesture to be judged on art's own terms.
The artist draws not only on the history of performance and installation-art, but also incorporates references to Belgian Surrealism in his works. In Lahlou's art we find humor, poetics, guts, dedication, refined artistic intuition, personal risk taking and social relevance.
For his one-man show at Kunstraum Richard Sorge, in Berlin, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou will present his performance/installation/restaurant Dar_Koom" and the large scale installation "Cocktail, Self-portrait in Society" and more recent works.
Comments
Have you been to this event? Share your insights and give it a review below.