Join us at B7L9 Art Centre on Wednesday, May 13 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM for the forthcoming lecture performance “Wayward Voices in Interwar Modern Art: Grammatology versus Geo-Philosophies” — Listening Act 3 by Mohamed Ali Ltaief, featuring Naima Hassan, curator and researcher based in Berlin (Managing editor Contemporary And (C&)), as a speaker, and Mounir Hentati as respondent.
As part of the I HEAR THE OLD SOUND OF THE WORLD’S FUTURE exhibition and public programme of lectures, listening acts and live works, Mohamed-Ali Ltaief’s lecture performance negotiates and re-contextualizes the genealogy of early music records in Tunisia / North Africa and in the diaspora. It situates transnational identities and engages with fragmented biographies of interwar artists, music producers, and dancers who performed in the first decade of the twentieth century. Ltaief expands the connections with the Arab and African diaspora, specifically focusing on singular histories such as the “Baidaphon” music label (founded in Berlin-Mitte, 1912); the Tunisian artists they recorded; the involvement of performing and sound artists in the anti-colonial and anti-fascist era in North Africa and in exile. Ltaief’s lecture intertwines with scattered counter-archives that can be read in sound catalogues such as the independent music labels: “Oum-El-Hassen” Tunis 30s, “Rssaissi” Tunis 30s, “Fiesta” Paris 40s, “Maksoud” NYC 10—30s, and “Wardatone” Detroit, USA 50s.
A guided tour will take place before the lecture performance.
Courtesy: Ennejma Ezzahra Museum, Tunis
Wednesday 13 May
6:30 - 8:30 PM
B7l9 Art Centre
