moderation: Marc Navarro, Maria Brewińska

What is the symbiotic collaboration between two artists who work as a duo and have been a couple in their private lives? What media shape their artistic language for expressing multiple themes? What is the source of the artists’ choreography: is it the potential of their bodies or the desire to express emotions through these poses? How do they combine private motifs with cultural references? And what cultural themes do they embody in subtle performances? Do and how do large-scale drawings linked to choreographed bodies fit into gay and queer culture? What models of masculinity do they represent against a background of tradition and rich cultural motifs? And what role do stones and masks play in all this?

We will have the privilege of discussing such complex work by Prinz Gholam with the artists at their solo exhibition presented in the lower rooms of Zachęta gallery.

Prinz Gholam – Wolfgang Prinz (born 1969) and Michel Gholam (born 1963) have been working as a duo since 2001. They live in Berlin. They come from different cultures – German (Prinz) and Lebanese (Gholam). They use multicultural motifs in their works and actions. Since the beginning of their work together, they have used performance and choreography. They also create large-format drawings and small sculptural objects. The exhibition at Zachęta presents various works by the artist duo using classical media in an unconventional way. It also focuses attention on the model of symbiotic collaboration they pursue. Performance and performative practices are an important element of this. Prinz Gholam reinterpret a rich set of cultural references to ancient works, classical works, contemporary art and culture, but also historical themes.

Marc Navarro – curator and writer based in Berlin. He has curated exhibitions at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, Espai 13 – Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida, among others. His texts have been published in catalogs and specialized publications. He is the co-editor of the books Assuming Assymetries. Conversations on Curating Public Art in the 1980s and 1990s (2022) and Curating Beyond the Mainstream. The Practices of Carlos Capelán, Elisabet Haglund, Gunilla Lundahl, and Jan-Erik Lundström (2022) both published by Sternberg Press. He has received curatorial research scholarships from OSIC and the Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.