Hamza Halloubi
Its throat is parched with thirst, but it would not accept a single drop of water from alien hands
from 13 September
work in collection
This autumn, De Pont Museum presents an impressive double premiere by the Moroccan-Belgian artist Hamza Halloubi (b. 1982). The exhibition features both his very first feature film, Vizor (2024), and a new immersive installation centred on the mystery of the disappeared politician Mehdi Ben Barka. With this presentation, Halloubi returns to De Pont, where he held his first solo museum exhibition in 2015.
In his most recent work, Halloubi revisits one of the great political enigmas of the 20th century: the disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka (1920-1965), a prominent Moroccan opposition leader and anti-colonial thinker. In 1965, Ben Barka vanished without a trace in Paris. According to Israeli investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Ronen Bergman, he was murdered and buried on the site where the private Fondation Louis Vuitton museum now stands. Halloubi uses this symbolic location as the basis for a haunting 3D animated film. In it, Ben Barka’s spirit drifts through the empty museum building, a powerful symbol of the entanglement of art, power and capital in our time.
Vizor (2024): A film without escape
In Vizor, his first feature film, Halloubi explores the boundaries of cinema – and of human relationships. The protagonist discovers that he has unknowingly married his own sister. Trapped in a web of inescapable emotions, he flees his life. Halloubi’s visual style is as daring as it is meaningful: he alternates between colour and black-and-white, flips the frame upside down, and shows landscapes through the reflective visor of a helmet. Vizor is a powerful cinematic essay on life’s irresolvable dilemmas and on the very limits of art itself.
About Hamza Halloubi
Hamza Halloubi (b. 1982) lives and works in Brussels. His work moves between fiction and reality, weaving personal narratives with collective histories. Themes such as migration, cultural identity and postcolonialism play a central role. De Pont Museum recognised his talent early on and hosted his first solo museum exhibition in 2015. Since then, eight of his works have been acquired for the museum’s collection. Get to know Halloubi in the auditorium through the short documentary Hamza Halloubi: In His Own Words. In this personal film, he speaks about his vision, creative process, and the themes that shape his work.
The works in the exhibition were made possible in part through the support of
Moussem, nomadic arts centre, Brussels and Flemish Community