Concert and finissage: Mazen Kerbaj invites Tony Buck plus one
16.8.2020, 6pm
Concert
Due to the current situation, we ask you to register your participation at IFA-Galerie-Berlin@ifa.de until 7 August.
Music and visual arts are the two facets of Mazen Kerbaj’s work. Both practices influence each other a lot, and it seems very natural to present a series of concerts in this exhibition. In this series Kerbaj invites one of his close collaborators in Berlin, asking her/him to bring along another musician. The name of the second musician will remain unrevealed to Kerbaj and to the audience until the date of the show, where the three musicians will perform together for the first time.
Tony Buck is regarded as one of Australia’s most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. As a drummer, percussionist, improviser, guitarist, video maker and producer, he has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects but is probably best known around the world as a member of the trio “The Necks”. Some of the more high profile projects he has been involved with include the band Kletka Red, and touring and recording with, among others, The EX, The Exiles, and Corchestra, and involvement with most of the international improvisation and new music community and festivals. He also creates video works for use with live music performance and has had pieces shown in Tokyo, Belfast, Berlin, New York and Sydney. Current projects include a LIVE solo adaption of the UNEARTH music, incorporating installations, video, drums and guitar; “Spill” with Magda Mayas; “Transmit” (a guitar driven post-rock project); New York based trio “Glacial” (with David Watson and Lee Ranaldo); “Circadia” (with Kim Myhr, David Stackenas and Joe Williamson); a long standing duo with Axel Doerner as well as a continuing in ad hoc and improvised performance settings.
Mazen Kerbaj in conversation with Hatem Imam
This conversation was done to accompany the solo exhibition “In the Presence/Absence of Mazen Kerbaj” that opened at ifa Gallery Berlin in February 2020. Two weeks after the opening, the show had to close due to the lockdown imposed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic; it opened again in May 2020 albeit with new safety measures and restrictions. The conversation took place on 26 June 2020 via video conferencing, Hatem Imam being in Beirut and Mazen Kerbaj in Berlin. It was recorded in one sitting, with no prior discussion.
Art Education
Cancelled | Lecture: How racism talks through schoolbooks
27.3.2020, 7pm
Lecture
On the coloniality of knowledge transfer within the school context
Lecture by Dr. Elina Marmer
The lecture will be held in German. For more information please check the German page.
Concert in the inner courtyard of the gallery: Mazen Kerbaj invites Andrew Lafkas plus one
9.7.2020, 6pm
Concert
Due to the current situation, we ask you to register your participation at IFA-Galerie-Berlin@ifa.de until 7 July.
Music and visual arts are the two facets of Mazen Kerbaj’s work. Both practices influence each other a lot, and it seems very natural to present a series of concerts in this exhibition. In this series Kerbaj invites one of his close collaborators in Berlin, asking her/him to bring along another musician. The name of the second musician will remain unrevealed to Kerbaj and to the audience until the date of the show, where the three musicians will perform together for the first time.
Andrew Lafkas is a musician currently living in Berlin, Germany. His primary instrument is the contrabass. He is currently focused on developing pieces for largish ensembles that encourage group intuition; this interest is greatly inspired by and influenced by experiences working in groups led by Milo Fine and Bill Dixon. He is also active in the groups Oceans Roar 1000 Drums with Todd Capp and Bryan Eubanks, and a trio with Marcia Bassett and Barry Weisblat. He has performed at venues and festivals including Walker Art Center, The Living Theatre, Experimental Intermedia, the Vision Festival, and the Seattle Improvised Music Festival.
Video | Mazen Kerbaj invites… Tony Buck plus one
23.4.2020, 7pm
Concert
Due to Coronavirus ifa Gallery Berlin had to cancel a series of concerts where Mazen Kerbaj would invite close collaborators from Berlin, and ask them to bring along a guest to play a trio together. Now Kerbaj has found a way to replace these gigs by recording solo pieces while listening to the other musicians solos through headphones, both an homage and a an open letter to close collaborators who he cannot meet for the time being: This time he recorded a solo while listening to Tony Buck’s Tidal, an unreleased piece that the musician shared with him for this project.
Tony Buck is regarded as one of Australia’s most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. As a drummer, percussionist, improviser, guitarist, video maker and producer, he has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects but is probably best known around the world as a member of the trio “The Necks”. Some of the more high profile projects he has been involved with include the band Kletka Red, and touring and recording with, among others, The EX, The Exiles, and Corchestra, and involvement with most of the international improvisation and new music community and festivals. He also creates video works for use with live music performance and has had pieces shown in Tokyo, Belfast, Berlin, New York and Sydney.
Current projects include a LIVE solo adaption of the UNEARTH music, incorporating installations, video, drums and guitar; “Spill” with Magda Mayas; “Transmit” (a guitar driven post-rock project); New York based trio “Glacial” (with David Watson and Lee Ranaldo); “Circadia” (with Kim Myhr, David Stackenas and Joe Williamson); a long standing duo with Axel Doerner as well as a continuing in ad hoc and improvised performance settings.
Video | Mazen Kerbaj invites… Ute Wassermann plus one
19.3.2020, 7pm
Concert
Due to Coronavirus ifa Gallery Berlin had to cancel a series of concerts where Mazen Kerbaj would invite close collaborators from Berlin, and ask them to bring along a guest to play a trio together. Now Kerbaj has found a way to replace these gigs by recording solo pieces while listening to the other musicians solos through headphones, both an homage and a an open letter to close collaborators who he cannot meet for the time being: Enjoy this first attempt recorded while listening to Strange Song 6 by Ute Wassermann!
As a vocal artist and composer, Ute Wassermann is known for her polyphonic and extreme sound language, which she brings into various contexts of experimental music. She graduated in fine arts (sound installations / performance) at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg and studied fine arts / music / singing at the University of California, San Diego. She develops her performances in the fields of composition, improvisation, performance art and sound art. With her voice she creates sound spaces in which the voice goes far beyond the usual sound and produces instrumental, electronic or nature-like noises. She also expands her singing with birdcalls and mouthpipes, field recordings, resonance and loudspeaker objects, as well as with light. As an improviser she regularly performs with musicians from the international scene, as well as in fixed groups. As a voice soloist in the field of New Music and experimental music Ute Wassermann performs at festivals and stages in Europe, Australia, Asia, Mexico, Brazil, USA and in museums, art halls, clubs.
Artist Talk: In the Presence / Absence of Mazen Kerbaj
28.2.2020, 4pm
talk
Lebanese comic author, visual artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj and Hatem Iman, curator of the exhibition In the Presence / Absence of Mazen Kerbaj, will explore the relationship of autobiography and politics in underground comics. Since 2011, the two have collaborated on many design projects mostly in the alternative music scene of Beirut.
Mazen Kerbaj
Hatem Imam
Mazen Kerbaj’s art deploys two tropes that are not uncommon in underground comics: autobiography and politics. An amalgamation of the personal and the historical. Yet his work 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 old and new works, and put together in this formation for the first time, draws parallels in time, medium and space. The pieces are placed in dialogue— 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 with each other. Each one of them is the record of a specific moment and a particular place; on a spectrum of sobriety; in a varying tongue; rendered in a different medium. Kerbaj is always on the move, and movement is both a condition of his work and its subject.