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Biography
Short Version
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician born in Beirut in 1975. He also works on selective illustration and design projects and has taught at the American University of Beirut.
Kerbaj is the author of 15 books translated into more than ten languages and his work has been shown in galleries, museums and art fairs around the world.
Mazen Kerbaj is widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. As a trumpet player, he pushes the boundaries of the instrument beyond recognition.
Long Version
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician born in Beirut in 1975. He also works on selective illustration and design projects and has taught at the American University of Beirut.
Kerbaj is the author of more than 15 books, and his short stories and drawings have been published in anthologies, newspapers, and magazines. His work has been translated into more than ten languages in various local and international publications. His paintings, drawings, videos, live performances and installations have been shown as part of numerous solo and collective exhibitions, in galleries, museums and art fairs around the world.
His visual art is heavily influenced by his musical improvisation practice; this is apparent in his long standing “four hands” collaborations with other visual artists, such as his late mother Laure Ghorayeb and Lebanese artist Hatem Imam, as well as his live visual performances, such as Wormholes or Synesthesia.
Mazen Kerbaj is widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. He is co-founder and active member of MILL, the cultural music association behind Irtijal, an annual improvisation music festival held in Beirut since 2001, and co-founder of Al Maslakh, the first label for experimental music in the region operating since 2005.
As a trumpet player, whether in solo performances or with long-lasting groups like “A” Trio, Kerbaj pushes the boundaries of the instrument and continues to develop a personal sound and an innovative language, following in the footsteps of pioneers like Bill Dixon, Axel Dörner and Franz Hautzinger.
Since 2000, he has played in solo and group performances in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Canada and the USA. He has performed with many musicians, some more frequently than others, including: Sharif Sehnaoui, Raed Yassin, Karkhana, Alan Bishop, AMM, The Necks, Mike Cooper, Franz Hautzinger, Evan Parker, Bob Ostertag, Pauline Oliveros, Sam Shalabi, The Scrambled Eggs, Michael Zerang, Axel Dörner, The Ex, Joe McPhee, Jean-François Pauvros, John Butcher, Michel Doneda, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, Peter Evans, Nate Wooley…
In 2006, during the 33-day war with Israel, Kerbaj started his first blog: a daily visual diary recounting the conflict, mixing the personal with the collective. All the drawings and texts were later published as a book under the title Beyrouth, juillet-août 2006 (L’association, 2007) and Beirut Won’t Cry (Fantagraphics, 2018). He also recorded extensively during this period; most notably trumpet solos played on his balcony while the Israeli air force was bombing Beirut, one excerpt of which was shared on the blog, under the title Starry Night. The rest of the recordings, including more trumpet solos, TV news, phone conversations with friends, and other bombings of the city were collected in a seminal sound installation that was presented for the first time in Berlin in 2016, during the Maerz Muzik festival, under the title Before the War It Was the War. After The War It Is Still the War.
In 2015, Kerbaj was the recipient of a DAAD one-year artist in residency in Berlin. He lives and works in the German capital since.
Since his move to Berlin, Kerbaj has developed several new projects in different fields, such as Borborygmus a theatre play he co-wrote, directed and performed with Rabih Mroué and Lina Majdalanie; Synesthesia, a concept for a live graphic score for an improvising ensemble that premiered at the Ultima festival in Oslo; and Walls Will Fall, a composition for 49 trumpets performed in a water reservoir in Berlin in 2018. He also started working on his most ambitious graphic novel to date, a biography of his father, actor Antoine Kerbage, mixed with his own autobiography and stories from the golden age of the Lebanese artistic and intellectual life of the 70s. This work is being published in individual chapters since the beginning of 2019.
It is in Berlin that he co-founded in 2021 Graphème, a publication for experimental music scores.
In 2020 and 2021 Mazen Kerbaj developed new works in answer to the Covid-19 pandemic; these included The Corona Diaries, a blog where he shared drawings, texts and videos made during the lockdown, and Mazen Kerbaj: The Musical, his first movie, shot in complete isolation.
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Contact
Biography
Short Version
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician born in Beirut in 1975. He also works on selective illustration and design projects and has taught at the American University of Beirut.
Kerbaj is the author of 15 books translated into more than ten languages and his work has been shown in galleries, museums and art fairs around the world.
Mazen Kerbaj is widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. As a trumpet player, he pushes the boundaries of the instrument beyond recognition.
Long Version
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician born in Beirut in 1975. He also works on selective illustration and design projects and has taught at the American University of Beirut.
Kerbaj is the author of more than 15 books, and his short stories and drawings have been published in anthologies, newspapers, and magazines. His work has been translated into more than ten languages in various local and international publications. His paintings, drawings, videos, live performances and installations have been shown as part of numerous solo and collective exhibitions, in galleries, museums and art fairs around the world.
His visual art is heavily influenced by his musical improvisation practice; this is apparent in his long standing “four hands” collaborations with other visual artists, such as his late mother Laure Ghorayeb and Lebanese artist Hatem Imam, as well as his live visual performances, such as Wormholes or Synesthesia.
Mazen Kerbaj is widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. He is co-founder and active member of MILL, the cultural music association behind Irtijal, an annual improvisation music festival held in Beirut since 2001, and co-founder of Al Maslakh, the first label for experimental music in the region operating since 2005.
As a trumpet player, whether in solo performances or with long-lasting groups like “A” Trio, Kerbaj pushes the boundaries of the instrument and continues to develop a personal sound and an innovative language, following in the footsteps of pioneers like Bill Dixon, Axel Dörner and Franz Hautzinger.
Since 2000, he has played in solo and group performances in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Canada and the USA. He has performed with many musicians, some more frequently than others, including: Sharif Sehnaoui, Raed Yassin, Karkhana, Alan Bishop, AMM, The Necks, Mike Cooper, Franz Hautzinger, Evan Parker, Bob Ostertag, Pauline Oliveros, Sam Shalabi, The Scrambled Eggs, Michael Zerang, Axel Dörner, The Ex, Joe McPhee, Jean-François Pauvros, John Butcher, Michel Doneda, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, Peter Evans, Nate Wooley…
In 2006, during the 33-day war with Israel, Kerbaj started his first blog: a daily visual diary recounting the conflict, mixing the personal with the collective. All the drawings and texts were later published as a book under the title Beyrouth, juillet-août 2006 (L’association, 2007) and Beirut Won’t Cry (Fantagraphics, 2018). He also recorded extensively during this period; most notably trumpet solos played on his balcony while the Israeli air force was bombing Beirut, one excerpt of which was shared on the blog, under the title Starry Night. The rest of the recordings, including more trumpet solos, TV news, phone conversations with friends, and other bombings of the city were collected in a seminal sound installation that was presented for the first time in Berlin in 2016, during the Maerz Muzik festival, under the title Before the War It Was the War. After The War It Is Still the War.
In 2015, Kerbaj was the recipient of a DAAD one-year artist in residency in Berlin. He lives and works in the German capital since.
Since his move to Berlin, Kerbaj has developed several new projects in different fields, such as Borborygmus a theatre play he co-wrote, directed and performed with Rabih Mroué and Lina Majdalanie; Synesthesia, a concept for a live graphic score for an improvising ensemble that premiered at the Ultima festival in Oslo; and Walls Will Fall, a composition for 49 trumpets performed in a water reservoir in Berlin in 2018. He also started working on his most ambitious graphic novel to date, a biography of his father, actor Antoine Kerbage, mixed with his own autobiography and stories from the golden age of the Lebanese artistic and intellectual life of the 70s. This work is being published in individual chapters since the beginning of 2019.
It is in Berlin that he co-founded in 2021 Graphème, a publication for experimental music scores.
In 2020 and 2021 Mazen Kerbaj developed new works in answer to the Covid-19 pandemic; these included The Corona Diaries, a blog where he shared drawings, texts and videos made during the lockdown, and Mazen Kerbaj: The Musical, his first movie, shot in complete isolation.
Read More