Reference monograph.
Following the duo's bodies of work since the early psycho-geographic
mapping of Beirut to the recent projects gathered together under the title
"Lebanese Rocket Society," this book is the first reference monograph
dedicated to the artists. Essays by Guggenheim Foundation Curator Suzanne
Cotter and cinema critic and historian Jean-Michel Frodon, as well as a
conversation held by Michèle Thériault, Director of the
Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Montreal, with fellow artists and
thinkers (Jalal Toufik,
Etel Adnan, Dominique Abensour, etc.), explore the
numerous themes of their practice.
Since the mid-1990s, Lebanese artists Joana Hadjithomas &
Khalil Joreige (b. 1969, live and work in Beirut,
Lebanon, and Paris) have worked
together in the visual arts and
cinema–shooting documentaries and
fictions such as "I Want To See," starring Catherine Deneuve and
Rabih Mroué and screened at the Cannes Festival in 2008.
Their practice in both fields is imbued with a distinctive aesthetic that
occupies spheres of the visible and the fictional, nourishing a
fascinating back and forth between life and fiction. Investigative
processes, excavation, and the representations of historic, social,
cultural, and political factors are at the heart of their practice. In
their words: "All our work exists on the frontier of a reality where the
question of the territory and its delimitation (that of art, that of
personal life), the question of the social body and the individual body,
are constantly being posed."
Their films have
been multi awarded in international festivals and enjoyed releases in
many countries. Their artworks have been shown in museums, biennials and
art centers around the world, in solo or collective exhibitions and are
part of important public and private collections, such as Musée
d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Guggenheim, New York; Centre Georges
Pompidou, France; V & A London, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, etc.