Mehdi-Georges Lahlou

Visual Artist, Performance Artist, and Theater Director Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (born in Les Sables d'Olonne, 1983) is a Franco-Moroccan artist who lives and works between Brussels and Paris.
He trained at the École supérieure des beaux-arts in Nantes Saint-Nazaire and obtained a Ph.D. in Arts from AVANS University in the Netherlands in 2010.
In 2014, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou was part of the first session of 'Les réalisateurs' (a post-graduate program in Art and Business), conceived and directed by artist Fabrice Hyber in partnership with Audencia Nantes School of Management and ESBANM. From 2017 to 2020, he was an associate artist at the CDN de Normandie-Rouen. He also held a residency at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht from 2019 to 2020.

Among his solo exhibitions are: "extra" at Centrale for Contemporary Art - Brussels (Belgium); "From the Balcony" at Galerie Rabouan Moussion – Paris (France), 2020; "Et si rien ne prend racine dans cette oasis" at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Rouen (France), 2019; "72 (Virgins) in Motion and Aria" at the Museo de Arte Colonial, La Havana (Cuba), 2019; "Under the Sand, the Sun" at Galerie Transit, Mechelen (Belgium), 2019; "75" at the Muzeul Național de Artă Contemporană, Bucharest (Romania), 2019; "Behind the Garden," curated by Simon Njami, at Le Botanique Museum – Brussels (Belgium), 2017; "Of the Confused Memory" at Galerie Rabouan Moussion – Paris (France), 2017; "And Even If Nothing Takes Root in this Oasis" at Galerie Transit, Mechelen (Belgium), 2016; "I Did Not Have To Cross the Sea" at the Merton D. Simpson Gallery, New York (USA), 2015; "Even the Dust Remains" at In Flanders Field Museum, Ypres (Belgium).

His works have been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including at the Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Portugal (2023), the Mucem in Marseille, France, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden – MACAAL in Marrakech, Morocco (2019), the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, Italy (2018), the William Benton Museum of Art in Storrs, USA (2017), the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, France (2016), the Centre Pompidou Málaga in Malaga, Spain (2016), the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, France (2016, 2014, and 2012), the Institut d’art contemporain in Villeurbanne, France (2016), and the MMVI Musée Mohammed VI in Rabat (2014 MA). His work has also been presented at several international biennales (Havana, Dakar, Casablanca, Venice, Sakhnin).

A performance artist since 2003, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou has created and performed works such as "Stupidité Contrôlée" (2013), "C’est Charmant XIII" (2014), and "Run Run Baby Run Run" (2015). In 2018, he directed and designed his first stage production "The Ring of the Dove," based on the poem "Le collier de la colombe" by Ibn Hazm (circa 1023). He collaborated with Marie Payen on "Ils se jettent dans des endroits où on ne peut les trouver" for the Festival d’Avignon 2019. In 2019, he directed the installation/performance "75" for seven performers at the MNAC in Bucharest, Romania. In 2021, he wrote and directed "72 Vierges," a play for four actresses, under the delegated direction of CDN de Normandie-Rouen. The show is currently touring in France.