EXHIBITION: PRINZ GHOLAM

Opening: 07/09/2024, 16.00 – 20.00 (Prinz Gholam. Performance with four entrances)

Curator: Maria Brewińska

Prinz Gholam is the collaborative name of two artists, Wolfgang Prinz and Michel Gholam, who have been working together since 2001. Hailing from different cultural backgrounds — German (Prinz) and Lebanese (Gholam) — their art transcends national contexts. They draw inspiration from diverse cultures and eras, incorporating these elements freely into their work. Their creative practice encompasses performance pieces and choreographies staged in the presence of viewers or for the photographic or film camera, as well as large-scale drawings, stone sculptural objects, and distinctive masks, the latter influenced by the 2020 pandemic.

The Zachęta exhibition presents the duo’s diverse body of work, demonstrating their unconventional approach to traditional artistic media. It highlights their symbiotic working relationship, emphasising the significance of performance and performative practices. Prinz Gholam’s work embodies and reinterprets a wealth of cultural references, spanning ancient and classical art, contemporary creations, literature, media, historic sites, museums, architecture, and the natural world. Prinz Gholam’s unique performative journey started in 2001 within the confines of a private apartment. It began with practising and synchronising static choreographies, blending planned elements with intuitive and spontaneous movements. Photography became integral to their multidisciplinary approach, initially capturing sequences of compositions with bodies arranged to test their limits, in stillness. The connection between these two ‘selves’ gave rise to a third, ‘unites’ self, a living sculpture visible only through photography. The exhibition showcases early photographic works from 2002–2006, documenting that unhurrying creative process. Here, photography and later film serve as a third eye that intrudes, but also documents, unites, and reveals the recent past, unseen by the participating bodies. Months of experimentation, self-acceptance, and affirmation led the duo to extend their work to the public space.

Maria Brewińska

PRINZ GHOLAM

Wolfgang Prinz, born 1969 in Leutkirch (Germany) and Michel Gholam, born 1963 in Beirut, work together since 2001. They live in Berlin.

Selected individual exhibitions and performance projects:
Scenes from Behind, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris/Romainville (2023); Musée dʻart contemporain de la Haute-Vienne, Rochechouart, France (2022); The Survivor and the Dreamer, SDK — Dresden State Museum, Germany (performance, 2022); While Being Other, Mattatoio, Rome (2021); My Heart Is a Poised Cithara, Hidden Histories, Museo Nationale Romano, Palazzo Altemps, Rome (performance, 2020); Dial F for Father, MEWO Kunsthalle Memmingen, Germany (2020); Dial F for Father, Art in Public Space Tyrol, Austria (performance, 2019); Speaking of Pictures, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris (2018); Centre Pompidou Metz, France (performance, 2010).

Selected group exhibitions:
Never Cross the Same River Twice, Troy House Art Foundation, London (2023); The New Man — The Announcer — The Constructor, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover (2023); Aranya Plein Air Art Project, Aranya Art Center, Jinshanling, China (2023); Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, Japan (2022); Villa Massimo in Cittá, Rome (2021); Syncopation: Contemporary Encounters with the Modern Masters, Pola Museum of Art, Sengokuhara/Hakone, Japan (2019); The Video is the Message, Hamburger Kunsthalle (2018); documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Generosity — The Art of Giving, National Gallery Prague (2016); Soleil Politique, Museion Bozen/Bolzano (2014); Blue Times, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2014); Le Movement Performing the City, Swiss Sculpture Exhibition, Biel/Bienne (2014); The Living Currency/Die Lebende Münze, 6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (2010); The Living Currency, Tate Modern, London (2008).

Further information: https://zacheta.art.pl/en/wystawy/prinz-gholam?setlang=1