BURNING RIVIERAS
Opening June 4 (6-9pm)

With : Marios Fournaris, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

As the world burns, particularly around the Mediterranean, art acts as a tightrope walker, balancing memory and beauty. Whether it’s the work of the legendary duo Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, who have always engaged with memory–a memory that embraces the present, and even the future–or that of Marios Fournaris, who offers us a fire extinguisher in the form of the Swiss Red Cross–art plays, lightens, and looks with irony within a bittersweet atmosphere that reflects both the reality of our times and our desires.

Marios Fournaris

In contrast to the “Greek Rivieras”, those Cycladic Islands that flame up every summer, Marios Fournaris’s art draws inspiration from the realities of everyday life of the majority of Greek people and their dreams, which are both melancholic and fertile. Setting out, on stilts if necessary, but with an imaginary caravan; gathering ripe wheat along the way and still attempting to reach the sky… Marios Fournaris’s sculptures resonate with the photographs of Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige. Wonder Beirut–the marvelous shores of the Mediterranean–and reality, as it is.

Marios Fournaris was born and lives in Perama, a suburb of Athens that is as deprived as it is fascinating. He is an artist, academic, poet, and curator, holding an MFA from the University of Dundee and a PhD in art history from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, focusing on Arte Povera and the new humanism as defined by contemporary postcolonial studies. He is involved in the SHARING PERAMA project, which was presented by the ECC in parallel to the 2022 Venice Biennale. Marios Fournaris’ work is currently also shown in the 2026 exhibition by Fondation Villa Datris, "Mediterranean. Contemporary Odysseys".

Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

With Wonder Beirut (1997–2006), Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige portray the paradox of a contemporary Beirut haunted by the traumas of war. The inseparable and legendary Lebanese artist duo (exhibition "Se souvenir de la lumière" at the Jeu de Paume in 2016; Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2017; Venice Biennale in 2026) appropriated a series of old Beirut postcards partially burned by Abdallah Farah, a fictional pyromaniac photographer. From these images, the artists construct a visual counter-narrative: postcards from the before the war still circulate in the city, depicting the “Levant Riviera” of the 1960s-1970s–a cosmopolitan, seaside modernity that reality is contradicting.

Joana Hadjithomas (1969, Beirut) and Khalil Joreige (1969, Beirut) are Lebanese artists and filmmakers. Their work examines the production of images and representations, as well as the construction of memory and the writing of history, revealing the hidden layers. Their works have been presented in numerous international institutions, including the Centre Pompidou and Jeu de Paume, the Haus der Kunst, and the British Museum. They recently participated in the 2026 Venice Biennale.

Pour nous rejoindre :

Transports publics : trams 12 ou 17, arrêt Place Favre
Par train : arrêt gare de Chêne-Bourg
Transports automobiles : parking public au 19 rue du Gothard

Pour plus d'informations, veuillez contacter :

Barbara Polla : barbara.s.polla[at]gmail.com
tel : +41 22 860 03 72