Practicing Acceptance #1, #6, #12, #16, #21, #23, 2024
Mixed media on paper
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Acquired 2025
Rabih Mroué’s artistic practice was shaped within the historical context of the Lebanese Civil War. Practicing Acceptance is a series of drawings capturing human figures in moments of surrender. The series unfolds around the ambiguity of these images: is it weakness and defeat they speak to, or is it a symbolic gesture of resistance they embody, perhaps even a manifestation of inner strength? In a world marked by conflict, war, and profound social divisions, the works do not offer univocal answers; rather, they open onto a space where uncertainty can serve as a prerequisite for understanding and change.
A prominent figure in the international art scene, Rabih Mroué has developed a multidimensional interdisciplinary practice spanning theatre, performance, and the visual arts. His work focuses on the role of the image as both testimony and an active agent in shaping reality. Blending reality and fiction, Mroué explores the complex and often contradictory relationship between the image and truth, foregrounding the discontinuities and multiple readings that the image permits. In this way, his work functions as a critical reflection on the mechanisms of image production and reception in the contemporary world. This section of the series is articulated as a set of questions, inviting the viewer to observe the subtle gestures and bodily postures of its subjects. The figures trigger a process of reflection and interpretation, where doubt plays a central role in shifting the act of surrender from perceived passivity to dynamic defiance. Through this approach, the series explores the boundaries between withdrawal and resistance, suggesting that acceptance may function as a form of reflection and, potentially, as a starting point for transformation and redefinition.
Rabih Mroué was born in 1967 in Beirut. He lives and works in Berlin.
