Rabih Mroué

Please note: We have added a Saturday, January 21, matinee at 4pm of Looking for a Missing Employee.

Performance Prospectus: A complete guide to Rabih Mroué [PDF]

“[Mroué is] to Beirut what the Wooster Group is to New York: a blend of avant-garde innovation, conceptual complexity and political urgency, all grounded in earthy humor.” – New York Times

An investigative performance in which the artist becomes a detective, Looking for a missing employee begins its search for a missing civil servant using documents, photos and found objects. Joined onstage by a live cartoonist, Rabih Mroué uses materials from the Lebanese government to understand how rumors, public accusations, national political conflicts and scandals are shaped by the media as they weigh on the collective conscious of the public. Based on real events.

The winner of the 2010 Spalding Gray Award, Mroué’s storytelling pits facts against made-up truths and propaganda that are imbued with a peculiar sense of humor and a visual sensibility honed from years of creating exhibitions and installations for galleries and museums throughout Europe. In Lebanon his works have occasionally been banned as he deals with political issues that have been swept under the table. In 2008 he starred in a film alongside Catherine Deneuve, I Want to See, about the effects of the Lebanese Civil War. Mroué’s performance at OtB will be part of his US debut tour.

SEE ALSO: Rabih Mroué's The Pixelated Revolution, a one night only preview of the artist's next work on Sun, Jan 22.