Mounira Al Solh
Individual
Roles
ArtistBiography
Mounira Al Solh (b. 1978, Lebanon, lives and works between Beirut and Amsterdam) is a visual artist embracing inter alia video and video installations, painting and drawing, text, embroidery, and performative gestures. Irony and self-reflectivity are central strategies for her work, which explores feminist issues, tracks patterns of micro-history, bears witness to the impact of conflict and displacement, is socially engaged, and can be political and poetically escapist all at once. Her practice utilizes oral documentation, multidisciplinary collaboration and wordplay to explore themes of memory and loss. Motivated by acts of sharing and storytelling, change and resistance, Al Solh strives to craft a sensory language that defies nationality and creed.In 2008, Al Solh started NOA Magazine (Not Only Arabic), a collaborative initiative co-edited with collaborators such as Fadi El Tofeili, Mona Abu Rayyan, and Jacques Aswad. She co-founded NOA Language School in Amsterdam (2013), which functioned as a temporary research platform for investigations into the relationships between language and immigration.
Al Solh has had exhibitions at Museumsquartier Osnabrück, Germany (2022); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2022); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2020); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2018); Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2018); and The Art Institute Chicago (2018). She has also participated in group exhibitions including the Sharjah Biennial (2023); Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmengen, the Netherlands (2022); Busan Biennale (2022); ROZENSTRAAT, Amsterdam (2022); Musée National de Pablo Picasso–La Guerre et la Paix, Vallauris, France (2020); Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2020); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2020); Carré d’Art Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes (2018), Documenta 14, Kassel and Athens (2017); Venice Biennale (2015); New Museum Triennial, New York (2012); Sharjah Biennial 9 (2009); and 11th International Istanbul Biennial (2009), among others. In 2024, Al Solh represented Lebanon at the 60th Venice Biennale.
She is the winner of the ABN AMRO Art Award (2023), The Derek Williams Trust Artes Mundi Purchase Prize (2023); received the Uriôt Prize from the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2007), and the Black Magic Woman Award, Amsterdam (2007). She was also shortlisted for the Abraaj Group Art Prize, Dubai (2015) and nominated for the Volkskrant Award, Amsterdam (2009). Her video Rawane’s Song won the jury prize at Videobrasil (2007). Al Solh learned the double bass at the national conservatory of music in Lebanon, then studied painting at the Lebanese University in Beirut (1997–01) and Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (2003–06). She was also a research resident at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2007–08).
Sfeir-Semler Gallery, 2024
Collection
grunt gallery Programming Archive (Artist)Related program
The Sea Is A Stereo (Artist)Related Archive, Library & Publication Objects
Loading...