Artist: Hamid El Kanbouhi
Exhibition title: Persbericht HIST-I-O-RY/ L’AFFARE DEL SECOLO
Venue: 1646, The Hague, The Netherlands
Date: September 8 – October 7, 2018
Photography: Jhoeko / images copyright and courtesy of the artist and 1646, The Hague
How many generatons does a person need to disentangle him or herself from the collectve and personal history? And to what extent can a biased individual be regarded as a product, that can be included in the circulaton of commodites?
These are the questons that form the ground for the performatve installaton of Hamid El Kanbouhi (1976, works and lives in Amsterdam) of his solo exhibiton Hist-i-o-ry/ L’afare del secolo at 1646 that will open this season. For this exhibiton Hamid will create new work that takes up the complete gallery space and transforms it into an all covering performatve installaton, involving paintng, drawing, text, objects and human fgures that on special occasions will be actvated as the artst will put himself on display and ofer himself during the performances.
Hist-i-o- ry/ L’afare del secolo will be an performatve installaton through which the artst will explore notons as family, origin, the human being as product, talent, policy resultng into something that is an all involving work inextricable from the reality of the daily life of the artst and his struggle to survive as an artst.
The focus of the installaton will be directed on measuring the interpretaton of the visitor and his or her interacton with the performer, the space and the object. Unconventonal relatons are made to the world of football, the positon of the player as a product, and the signifcance the player carries for so many people. In a similar way Hamid El Kanbouhi likes to see the artst and the way the viewer is afected through the game of manipulaton. Simultaneously the viewer is involved in experiencing the work, afectng both lives.
The installaton will be unable to answer all the questons that it raises, rather it ofers a collecton of symbols and hints from the artsts life history and experience.
Hamid El Kanbouhi studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, the Sandberg Insttute and the Rijksakademie. In 2013 El Kanbouhi partcipated in the Biennale of Marrakech and in 2014 he became the frst city drawer of Amsterdam. In 2015 he was shown in Pangaea II at Saatchi Gallery London. Also in 2015 he started making large format drawings for site specifc installatons like WHO HAS PEED IN MY MIND (Nest, The Hague).
