After Laughter Comes Tears

After Laughter Comes Tears is an experimental exhibition dedicated to performance, and the second edition of the Mudam Performance Season launched in 2021. It will feature the work of thirty-four artists working across the mediums of performance, installation and video. Titled after the 1964 track “After Laughter” by American soul singer and songwriter Wendy Rene, the exhibition unfolds in four acts, mimicking the theatrical narrative of prologue, act 1, act 2, act 3, act 4 and epilogue. By considering moving image and installation as much as the exhibition and its scenography as performative objects, After Laughter Comes Tears proposes to expand the definition of performance. Simultaneously, it grounds the medium of performance within the museum, which traditionally hosts it as an occasional and timed utterance.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the feeling of stasis and anger that defines this later stage of capitalism endorsed by most societies. It is framed by the anxieties of a generation facing a climate crisis, welfare states trampled and failed by neoliberal policies and the rise of xenophobia and far-right parties across the globe, partly fuelled by fake news spreading on- and offline. Adopting the humorous, and at times, dramatic tone that is characteristic of theatricality and embracing the ambiguity that exists between those states, After Laughter Comes Tears unfolds through a narrative that speaks to and of bodies, politics and their fraught relationship under capitalist systems. The works of emerging artists, in dialogue with more established ones, consider the crisis of care and deeply entrenched notions of normalcy, aiming to make visible and thereby question standardised approaches to social and biological norms.

Curators: Joel Valabrega and Clémentine Proby assisted by Nathalie Lesure and Fanny Wateau.

Artists: Cem A., Monira Al Qadiri, Panteha Abareshi, Kate Cooper, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Jesse Darling, Stine Deja, Omer Fast, Anna Franceschini, Guan Xiao, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Lukáš Hofmann, Christian Jankowski, Chris Korda, Ndayé Kouagou, Ghislaine Leung, Isaac Lythgoe, Taus Makhacheva, Diego Marcon, Jacopo Miliani, Marie Munk, Chalisée Naamani, Agnieszka Polska, PRICE, Jean-Charles de Quillacq, Mika Rottenberg, Julika Rudelius, Dorian Sari, Sin Wai Kin, Shinuk Suh, Martine Syms, Mungo Thomson, Cajsa Von Zeipel, Artur Żmijewski.

Exhibition design: Matilde Cassani Studio (Matilde Cassani, Leonardo Gatti, Cecilia da Pozzo)

With the support of: Danish Arts Foundation, Ambasciata d’Italia Lussemburgo, Fondation Cavour
Thanks to: Spazio Meta, Embassy of the Czech Republic in Luxembourg

Publication
Published by Mudam Luxembourg and Lenz Press, this publication accompanies and complements the exhibition. It will include images and commissioned texts on the artists’ works, installation views, and a conversation between the curators of the exhibition and the editors of the publication. The book follows the structure of the exhibition, with a prologue, four acts and an epilogue which each sample excerpts from a range of theory, fiction and poetry that inspired and substantiate the themes of the exhibition. Widening the spectrum of the traditional catalogue, each artist was given a “carte blanche”—an invitation to contribute to the book on their own terms. 
Design: Sam de Groot. Language: English. Release date: December 2023.

Performance programme
October 12, 2023: Opening
Cem A, Sticker vendor comes to Mudam
Lukáš Hofmann, Long story short.
Taus Makhacheva, ASMR Spa

October 13, 2023
Taus Makhacheva, ASMR Spa

October 14, 2023: Nuit des Musées
Taus Makhacheva, ASMR Spa
Lukáš Hofmann, Long story short.

October 29, 2023
Ndayé Kouagou, 4 dogs and a plum

November 3, 4, and 5, 2023
Jean-Charles de Quillacq, The Stand-In

December 9 + 10, 2023
Taus Makhacheva, ASMR Spa

December 17, 2023
Anna Franceschini, JET SET

January 7, 2024
PRICE, I Try My Tongue (sequences).