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Jalal Toufic

Jalal Toufic

Brief Biography

Jalal Toufic is a professor of film studies at The American University in Cairo (AUC). He is the author of, among other books: 

  • What Was I Thinking? (e-flux journal-Sternberg Press, 2017)
  • The Dancer’s Two Bodies (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2015)
  • Forthcoming (Second ed., e-flux journal-Sternberg Press, 2014)
  • What Were You Thinking? (Berliner Künstlerprogramm/DAAD, 2011)

Toufic has made over 20 films and videos, which include essay films and conceptual films; short films (seven minutes, eight minutes and so on), feature-length films (110 minutes, 138 minutes, etc.), and inhumanely long films (72 hours, 50 hours); videos that are standalone works as well as ones that are part of mixed media works; films that he shot and films in which all the images are from films by other directors (Hitchcock, Sokurov, Bergman and more). Toufic, along with artists and pretend artists, was a participant in the Sharjah Biennials 6, 10, and 11, the 9 Shanghai Biennale, Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), A History: Art, Architecture, and Design, from the 1980s Until Today (Centre Pompidou), Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011 (MoMA PS1), Home Beirut, Sounding the Neighbors (MAXXI). He was a guest of the Artists-in-Berlin Program of the DAAD in 2011, and director of the School of Visual Arts at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (Alba) from September 2015 to August 2018.

Research Interest
  • Thought (Thought-provoking and/or art-provoking) 
  • Mortality 
  • Joy/jouissance
  • The withdrawal of tradition past a surpassing disaster
  • The dancer’s two bodies
  • Radical closure and the irruption of unworldly ahistorical fully-formed entities that it allows
  • Creating universes that don’t fall apart “two days” later
Education
  • PhD in radio/Tv/film, Northwestern University
  • MA in cinema studies, New York University
  • BA in philosophy, American University of Beirut
Courses
  • FILM 2120: Introduction to Film Art
  • FILM 3120: Cinema in Egypt and the Arab World
  • FILM 3130: Film Theory
  • FILM 3132: Film Theory II
  • FILM 3160: The Filmmaker: Alfred Hitchcock
  • FILM 3070: Selected Topics in Film: Death Through Films
  • FILM 3190: Film Genres: Vampire Films
  • FILM 5170: Advanced Seminar in Film Studies and Research: The Dancer’s Two Bodies
  • FILM 5170: Advanced Seminar in Film Studies Research: When Reality and Fiction Become Indiscernible

Books

  • Explicit and Implicit Variations on Hitchcock. Beirut Art Center, 2023.
  • Radical Closure. Singapore: National Gallery Singapore, 2020.
  • Postscripts. Stockholm: Moderna Museet; Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2020.
  • What Was I Thinking? Berlin: e-flux journal-Sternberg Press, 2017.
  • The Dancer’s Two Bodies. Sharjah, UAE: Sharjah Art Foundation, 2015.
  • What Were You Thinking? Berlin: Berliner Künstlerprogramm/DAAD, 2011.
  • What Is the Sum of Recurrently? Istanbul, Turkey: Galeri Nev, 2010.
  • The Withdrawal of Tradition Past a Surpassing Disaster. Los Angeles: California Institute of the Arts/Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater [REDCAT], 2009 (as one of the volumes of the publication that accompanied Walid Raad’s exhibition Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Arab World / Part I_Volume 1_Chapter 1 (Beirut: 1992–2005), edited by Clara Kim)
  • Two or Three Things I’m Dying to Tell You. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 2005.
  • Undying Love, or Love Dies. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 2002.
  • Forthcoming. Berkeley, CA: Atelos, 2000; 2nd ed., Berlin: e-flux journal-Sternberg Press, 2014.
  • Over-Sensitivity. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1996; 2nd ed., Forthcoming Books, 2009.
  • (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film. Barrytown, New York: Station Hill Press, 1993; revised and expanded edition, Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 2003.
  • Distracted. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1991; 2nd ed., Berkeley, CA: Tuumba Press, 2003.

Translated Books

French

  • Le Retrait de la tradition suite au désastre démesuré, trans. Omar Berrada and Ninon Vinsonneau. Paris: Les Prairies ordinaires, 2011.
  • Distrait, trans. Guillaume Fayard. Paris: Les Petits matins, 2011.

German

  • Vom Rückzug der Tradition nach einem unermesslichen Desaster, trans. Christoph Nöthlings. Berlin, Germany: August Verlag, 2011.

Booklets

  • Reading, Rewriting Poe’s The Oval Portrait—Angelically, part of dOCUMENTA (13)’s 100 Notes–100 Thoughts, English/German (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2011).

Selected Exhibitions/Screenings

  • Aporia (Notes to a Medium), group exhibition, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, January 14 – April 14, 2024.
  • Intimate Garden Scene (in Beirut), Home Works 9, Ashkal Alwan, The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Sursock Museum, Beirut, November 30, 2023–May 15, 2024.
  • Five Hitchcock Films as You’ve Never Seen Them Before, solo exhibition, Beirut Art Center, November 8, 2023–January 27, 2024.
  • Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, November 2, 2023.
  • 15 Years, Crossed Perspectives, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, November 4, 2022–January 7, 2023.
  • Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011, MoMA PS1, New York, November 3, 2019–March 1, 2020.
  • The D-Tale, Video Art from the Pearl River Delta, Episode 3: The Politics of the Self, Times Art Center Berlin, Berlin, March 1, 2019–April 13, 2019.
  • Heavenly Beings: Neither Human nor Animal, +MSUM | Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 10–November 4, 2018.
  • Truth Is Black, Write over It with a Mirage’s Light, Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan, July 3–October 4, 2018.
  • 7th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), Cities, Grow in Difference, Shenzhen, China, December 15, 2017–March 17, 2018.
  • Home Beirut, Sounding the Neighbors, MAXXI (National Museum of the 21st Century Arts), Rome, November 15, 2017–May 20, 2018.
  • Artists’ Film International 10th Anniversary Screening, Whitechapel Gallery, London, September 7–17, 2017.
  • I Can Call this Progress to Halt, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), March 8–April 23, 2017.
  • The Time Is out of Joint, Sharjah Art Foundation, March 12–June 12, 2016.
  • Do it بالعربي, Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates, January 23–April 23, 2016.
  • First Asia Biennial and 5th Guangzhou Triennial, December 11, 2015–April 10, 2016.
  • Seconds, Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates, October 11–December 10, 2014.
  • Une histoire, art, architecture et design, des années 80 à aujourd’hui (A History: Art, Architecture, and Design, from the 1980s Until Today), Centre Pompidou, Paris, September 16, 2015–January 2016.
  • Installing the Ruin, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, May 13–June 6, 2013.
  • Sharjah Biennial 11, United Arab Emirates, March 13–May 13, 2013.
  • 9th Shanghai Biennale, October 2, 2012–March 31, 2013.
  • Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, September 15 – December 31, 2012.
  • Surplus Authors, Witte de With | Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, September 5 – January 6, 2013.
  • 3rd Athens Biennale: Monodrome, Greece, October 23–December 11, 2011.
  • Locus Agonistes–Practices and Logics of the Civic, Argos Centre for Art and Media, Brussels, Belgium, October 1 – December 18, 2011.
  • Wunder (Miracles), the Deichtorhallen Hamburg and the Siemens Foundation, Hamburg, Germany, September 23, 2011 – February 5, 2012.
  • Decreation, West Space, Melbourne, Australia, August 8 – 27, 2011.
  • Image in the Aftermath, Beirut Art Center, May 18 – July 16, 2011.
  • Jalal Toufic: Irruptions of the Real, Daadgalerie, Berlin, May 13 – June 18, 2011.
  • Sharjah Biennial 10: Plot for a Biennial, United Arab Emirates, March 16 – May 16, 2011 (recipient of a 2011 Sharjah Biennial Prize as a philosopher, artist, and thinker of note.
  • Art in the Auditorium, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland, March 1 – June 1, 2011.
  • Giorgio Andreotta Calo, Jalal Toufic, Huang Xiaopeng, Whitechapel Gallery, London, January 28 – April 17, 2011.
  • All about Beirut, Galerie Tanit, White Box, Munich, December 17, 2010 – January 16, 2011.
  • Blind Dates: New Encounters from the Edges of a Former Empire, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York City, November 19, 2010 – February 11, 2011.
  • The Malady of Writing, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Spain, November 20, 2009 – April 25, 2010.
  • Medium Religion, ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany, November 23, 2008 – April 19, 2009.
  • Home Works IV: A Forum on Cultural Practices, the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts Ashkal Alwan, Sfeir Semler Gallery, Beirut, April 12 – May 31, 2008.
  • Art Now in Lebanon, Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan, March 4 – May 29, 2008.
  • Memorial to the Iraq War, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, May 23 – June 27, 2007.
  • Filming Death at Work, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, April 12 – May 14, 2006.
  • Home Works III: A Forum on Cultural Practices, Beirut, Lebanon, November 21 and 23, 2005.
  • Normalization, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey, March 10 – April 23, 2005.
  • Focus Jalal Toufic, 16th International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA), November 22, 25 and 29, 2003.
  • Home Works II: A Forum on Cultural Practices, the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, November 1, 2003.
  • Festival International du Cinéma Méditerranéen Montpellier, October 25 and November 1, 2003.
  • 14th Festival Internacional De Arte Electrônica—Videobrasil, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo, September 27, 2003.
  • DisORIENTation: Contemporary Arab Artistic Practices from the Middle East, House of World Cultures, Berlin, April 12, 2003.
  • 6th Sharjah International Biennial, United Arab Emirates, April 8–May 8, 2003.
  • Synopsis II-Theologies, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, October 15, 2002–January 5, 2003.
  • Contemporary Arab Representations, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, May 3–July 14, 2002; Witte de With, Rotterdam, September 15–November 24, 2002.
  • Home Works: A Forum on Cultural Practices in the Region: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon, April 7, 2002.
  • Tampering with the Reel, Artists Space, New York, June 7–July 19, 1997.
  • East of Here … (re) Imagining the ‘Orient, YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto, Canada, December 14, 1996.