Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Earwitness Theatre
28 September–21 December 201928 Sep–21 Dec 2019
#EarwitnessTheatre
The first solo exhibition in Australia by Beirut-based artist and ‘private ear’ Lawrence Abu Hamdan presents a new co-commission, Earwitness Theatre. Abu Hamdan’s practice examines the politics of listening through installations acutely attuned to sound.
Presenting an expanded library of over 90 sourced and custom-designed objects accompanied by an animated text work, Earwitness Inventory (2018) explores the hallucinatory world of the earwitness. This work is informed by Abu Hamdan’s acoustic studies of the Syrian prison of Saydnaya in 2016 and legal cases across the world in which sonic evidence is contested and acoustic memories need to be retrieved. The installation reflects on how the experience and memory of acoustic violence is connected to the production of sound effects.
Alongside Earwitness Inventory is a contained listening room hosting the audio work Saydnaya (the missing 19db) (2017). In this work Abu Hamdan oscillates between listening to the testimony of former detainees and listening to their reenacted whispers as a form of sonic evidence in itself. The violations taking place internally at the prison are only accessible through the recorded memories of the few who are released.
Abu Hamdan’s investigations into Saydnaya are extended with presentation of his recent performance-video installation Walled Unwalled (2018). Here a series of performance reenactments and a monologue comprise an interlinking series of narratives; legal cases that revolved around evidence heard or experienced through walls.
Earwitness Theatre attempts to capture the psychological, bodily, and spatial world of the earwitness—where sounds are remembered as images, where objects have unexpected echoes, and where silence becomes an entire language.
The prestigious Turner Prize 2019 was awarded to a collective of the four nominated artists including Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo, and Tai Shani.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Earwitness Theatre is commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, in partnership with the IMA; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri.
Saydnaya (the missing 19db) (2017) was commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation.
Off-Site Venues
- Chisenhale Gallery
London, UK21 Sep–09 Dec 2018Witte de With Contemporary Art
Rotterdam, NL27 Jan–28 Apr 2019Contemporary Art Museum
St Louis, USA17 May–18 Aug 2019Exhibition Texts
b.1985 Amman, Jordan
Lawrence Abu Hamdan lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. Recent solo exhibitions include: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Tate Tanks, Tate Modern, London (2018); Portikus, Frankfurt (2016); Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland (2015); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2014); and The Showroom, London (2012). He has participated in the 58th Venice Biennale, Venice (2019); Sharjah Biennial 13 & 14, Sharjah (2019, 2017); 9th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2016); 11th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2016); New Museum Triennial, New York (2015), and 10th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2014). Other notable group exhibitions have taken place at Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (2018); SculptureCenter, New York (2018); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2017); Museum Folkwang Essen, Germany (2016); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2016); Hayward Gallery, London (2015); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona (2014); Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon (2014). Abu Hamdan was the recipient of the Abraaj Group Prize and the Baloise Art Prize (both 2018).
