Voices without borders is an intimate dialogue between Etel Adnan (1925 in Beirut – 2021 in Paris) and Simone Fattal (* 1942 in Damascus, lives in Paris), two important voices from the Arab world. The exhibition reflects the multidisciplinary oeuvre of the artists, who were also life partners, and offers insights into their artistic and literary work, which they produced individually as well as in collaboration.

In cooperation with the Lenbachhaus in Munich and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, a comprehensive catalogue on Etel Adnan has been published by Hirmer.

Curator: Sébastien Delot 

20.9., 19:00
Tour with Mirjam Thomann (Artist, Berlin) through the exhibition

Feminist spaces are spaces that foster connections and demonstrate a sense of unity. Mirjam Thomann’s artistic and scholarly practice explores art spaces (studio, university, gallery, museum) and their architectural, social and institutional conditions from a queer-feminist perspective. In this tour, she provides subjective insights into the material artistic practises of Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal, and their significance for contemporary artists and art scholars.

Mirjam Thomann is interested in reflecting on and transcending architectural, social and institutional orders with the means of sculpture, installation, and text. In her works, she uses what is at hand at a certain site as an impetus, as material, space, and terrain, which she expands, supplements or comments on. This activation of what is there is combined with features such as reusability, combinability and movability of materials and fixtures.

Mirjam Thomann lives in Berlin and studied fine arts at Kingston University of London and the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Her last exhibition “3 Months Later“ (with Nora Schultz) was shown at Klosterruine Berlin in 2022, as well as “Theory & Action” at Galerie Nagel Draxler, Cologne. She has recently taken part in group exhibitions at the University of Lüneburg’s Kunstraum, Galerie Krobath, Vienna, After the Butcher, Berlin, and the North Coast Art Triennial. She received working grants from the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin, Stiftung Kunstfond, Bonn, and was artist in residence of the MAK Schindler Scholarship Program in Los Angeles. She is the author of Texte zur Kunst and currently teaches at the Department of Art and Music at the University of Cologne.
In German
Free admission
(fully booked)

22.11.,19:00
We became cosmic. Multidisciplinarity in the life and work of Etel Adnan & Simone Fattal
Panel conversation with Rasha Salti (Writer and curator of art and film, Berlin) and Jina Khayyer (Author, poet, journalist, Paris), moderated by Nanna Heidenreich (Media and cultural scholar and curator, Vienna and Berlin)

Etel Adnan (1925 in Beirut – 2021 in Paris) was a poet, painter, and philosopher and is an important figure in Arab modernism. Simone Fattal (*1942 in Damascus, lives in Paris) is an artist, translator, and publisher and has moved throughout her life between painting, sculpture, and poetry. Resonating with the themes of the exhibition Voices without borders, this discussion reflects on the multidisciplinary nature of the individual and joint creations of these two artists who were also life partners. Their work reveals their shared commitment, both politically and artistically, marked by their sense of radicalism and belief in the power of words. In 1982, Fattal founded the publishing house The Post-Apollo Press to publish Etel Adnan’s novel Sitt Marie Rose, which Adnan wrote in 1978 in response to the horrors of the Lebanese civil war; today it is a classic of anti-war literature. The name of the publishing house reflects the artists’ mutual interest in the Space Age, a pivotal era for both. Space exploration redefined humanity’s place in the universe. Adnan expressed how it fuelled boundless imagination by making the impossible achievable, demonstrating that limitations could be shattered and taboos overcome: “We all became cosmic”.

Jina Khayyer is a writer, poet and journalist. She studied painting at the Bauhaus in Dessau and journalism at the German School of Journalism in Munich. Since the 1990s, Khayyer’s texts have appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Zeit Magazin, the French daily Libération, as well as in the magazines 032c, Purple, The Gentlewoman, Fantastic Man, and Apartamento. In her writing, Khayyer questions concepts of origin, identity, heritage, and gender, asking the question, How not to break from it? In 2015, her first book, OLDER THAN JESUS, My Life As a Woman, was published. In 2021, her first book of poetry, NOT DARK YET, but it's getting there, was published in France, followed by TEAR CATCHER in 2023.

Rasha Salti is a writer and curator working in art and film. Raised in Beirut, earned a Masters’ degree in Liberal Studies from the Graduate Faculty of the New York School for Social Research. Among the projects she curated, are the MoMA exhibition Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s until Now (2010–2012), co-curated with Jytte Jensen; and Past Disquiet, co-curated with Kristine Khouri and exhibited at MACBA – Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (2015), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin (2016), the Museum of Solidarity Salvador Allende (MSSA) in Santiago (2018), the Sursock Museum in Beirut (2018) and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MoCAA) in Cape Town (2023). Salti’s research-focused essays connect cultural history with the world of film, appearing in publications by Afterall, Third Text and Naqd. Since 2017, she has been commissioning editor for the experimental documentary programme La Lucarne at Arte France.

Nanna Heidenreich (Dr. phil.) is a media cultural scientist & Curator of Film/Video/Theory/Interventions. Since October 2020 she is Professor of Transcultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. As a curator she has worked, among others, for the HKW, for Forum Expanded at the Berlinale and for the AdKdW in Cologne. She has published widely mainly in the field of critical migration research, visual culture, postcolonial theory, politics/art/cinema, other cinema (feminist, queer, experimental). Most recent publications include the book Spektakel und Möglichkeitsraum. Kunst und der lange Sommer der Migration (2022, open access). She lives in Berlin and in Vienna.

In English
Free admission

25.11., 14:00
Curator’s tour with Sébastien Delot
In English
Free admission
Registration here

The small, fine exhibition "Voices without borders" shows the cosmos of the two artists, intellectuals and cosmopolitans.(...) The sound of the world, the language of the planet, can be felt in the work of both artists.
[Die kleine feine Ausstellung „Voices without borders“ zeigt den Kosmos der beiden Künstlerinnen, Intellektuellen und Weltbürgerinnen. (...) Im Werk beider Künstlerinnen ist der Klang der Welt zu spüren, die Sprache des Planeten.]
Simone Reber, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 28.8.23)

The artists, positioning themselves as witnesses to their Lebanese and Syrian roots, to war, to colonisation, to displacement, provocatively challenge the very idea of stability. Rather than solidify narrative via documentation or memory, Adnan and Fattal make and eradicate form, obscure and reveal identities, gestures and histories.
Jasmine Reimer, artreview.com, 16.10.23

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has polarised the art world. While institutions have largely remained silent, artists have made public declarations. In these challenging times, the exhibition (...) takes on even greater significance.
Ayca Okay, stirworld.com, 30.10.23

Further Material:
Room Guide Etel Adnan & Simone Fattal. Voices without borders 
Floorplan Etel Adnan & Simone Fattal. Voices without borders