At-Tāriq. A Journey into the Rural Music Traditions of North Africa and the Arab World
February 18–May 18, 2025
Curated by Daniela Zyman.
The majlis is the traditional space of hospitality in Arab and North African homes. It is where one receives guests and travelers, offering shelter and conviviality to those arriving from afar. This ethos of hospitality serves as a guiding proposition in the exhibition At-Tāriq by the French-Lebanese artist and electroacoustic composer Tarek Atoui, presented by TBA21 and the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. Meaning “The Nightcomer” or “The Morning Star”, this exhibition inaugurates a long-term research project commissioned by TBA21, exploring the rural musical traditions of the Arab world along the trans-Saharan roads of pilgrimage and trade.
Atoui now presents the first chapter of his project, in which he guides us through the Tamazgha, the North African territories inhabited by the Amazigh people, a source and repository of musical, artistic, craft, and intellectual traditions. After two years of exchange with musicians and artisans from the Moroccan Atlas region and other nearby areas, the artist shows us a space of “poetic hospitality” constructed around the majlis, a place that welcomes, receives, and resonates while generating a multiplicity of affinities and experiences.
In Tarek Atoui: At-Tāriq. A Journey into the Rural Music Traditions of North Africa and the Arab World, music itself becomes hospitable. Through its layered sonic and material textures, the exhibition invites its guests to inhabit the thresholds between the traditional and the contemporary, the familiar and the unknown, unlocking the nomadic inclinations emerging from these encounters.
A prelude concert in Marrakesh
As a prelude to his forthcoming exhibition in Madrid, Tarek Atoui presents Forgotten Tales Through Time in Marrakesh, a concert with a traditional ensemble from Ouarzazate and Zagora, featuring the musicians Lahcen Amarrak, Said Ait Lhaj, Aicha Boukhris, Fadoua Ennouri, Fatima El Habibi, Ijja Id Haddou, Mohamed El Kartaoui, and Mohamed El Malyani. This unique experience will take place on January 31 at 4.30 pm at the Monde des Arts de la Parure as part of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.
This concert marks their first joint performance, blending Amazigh music with Atoui’s electro-acoustic experimentation. The program celebrates the tradition of long poems and oral stories from the region, passed down from generation to generation. These “singers of ten thousand verses” preserve ancient stories, some based on classical Arab epics, others inspired by local legends or everyday life, narrated with a hypnotic cadence.
A second iteration Madrid on March 3, as part of the program of the ARCO International Art Fair and the public program of the exhibition, reunites Atoui with the Moroccan ensemble alongside the three artists who collaborated with him on the exhibition’s soundscape: the percussionist Susie Ibarra (New York/Berlin), the musician Nancy Mounir (Cairo), and the DJ-composer Ziúr (Berlin).
About Tarek Atoui
Tarek Atoui (b. 1980, Beirut, Lebanon; lives and works in Paris, France) is an artist and electroacoustic composer working within the realm of sound performance and composition. He engineers complex and inventive instruments as well as arranges and curates interventions, concerts, performances, and workshops. His practice revolves around large-scale, collaborative performances that draw from extensive research into music history and instrumentation, while exploring new methods of production.
Using custom-built electronic instruments and computers, Atoui references current social and political realities, engaging music and new technologies as powerful aspects of expression and identity. Education and fostering social connections are integral aspects of Atoui’s practice.
An internationally acclaimed artist, Atoui has exhibited at prestigious venues, including the 2019 Venice Biennale, and in renowned institutions such as the Bourse du Commerce - Pinault Collection in Paris, The Flag Art Foundation in New York, and Tate Modern in London. His most recent exhibition, Improvisation in 10 Days, will open on February 6 at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan.
Find out more about TBA21’s program at tba21.org.
