a live performance at 7 PM

Ababri’s practice provokes activism through literary, sociological and political texts, attributed to queer individuals, but not exclusively queer in cultural impact, with previous exhibitions siphoning from Jean Genet, Frank O’Hara, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Didier Eribon and Yukio Mishima. NON MERCI !!! refers to Cyrano de Bergerac’s tirade, where he refuses to participate in the Bourgeois world, preferring to keep his pride and marginality. De Bergerac, that is to say, refuses to sell himself to society for a career. NON MERCI !!! is painted over the main walls of the gallery, while four yellow carpets in the shape of stars remain on the floor, activated by the four performers on opening night.

Ababri’s installation includes a new series of colored pencil-on-paper drawings. Created in Paris and during his residency in Berlin, leading up to the exhibition, reclining in bed, Ababri’s series of Bedworks is conceptually in line with de Bergerac’s state of mind, the refusal to change or stop being subversive.

Travailler à se construire un nom
Sur un sonnet, au lieu d’en faire d’autres ? Non,
Merci ! Ne découvrir du talent qu’aux mazettes ?
Être terrorisé par de vagues gazettes,
Et se dire sans cesse : « Oh ! pourvu que je sois
Dans les petits papiers du Mercure François » ?…
Non, merci ! Calculer, avoir peur, être blême,
Préférer faire une visite qu’un poème,
Rédiger des placets, se faire présenter ?
Non, merci ! non, merci ! non, merci ! Mais… chanter,
Rêver, rire, passer, être seul, être libre,
Avoir l’œil qui regarde bien, la voix qui vibre,
Mettre, quand il vous plaît, son feutre de travers,
Pour un oui, pour un non, se battre, – ou faire un vers !
Travailler sans souci de gloire ou de fortune,
À tel voyage, auquel on pense, dans la lune !

Non, merci !

On the occasion of the exhibition, the gallery will produce and publish a catalog of the works with an essay by Martha Kirszenbaum, available this November 2022. For further information on the artist and the works or to request images, please contact Owen Clements, owen(at)dittrich-schlechtriem.com.

Soufiane Ababri (b. Rabat, Morocco, 1985) lives and works between Paris and Tangier, Morocco. An artist monograph will be published by Triangle Books, Brussels, later this year. Ababri has shown widely in Europe, with exhibitions in Paris, Antwerp, Istanbul, London, Berlin and his hometown of Rabat. His work has most recently been acquired the collections of FRAC Poitou-Charentes and MAC/VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry, both in France.