22/09/2019
Reflecting on a week exploring contemporary art in Beirut, these pictures summarize my experience of a vibrant creative scene and an infrastructure of contemporary art institutions on the move.
With important private initiatives as Aïshti Foundation and Beirut Art Center (with support from artists as Etel Adnan, Mona Hatoum and Walid Raad), NGOs as Dalloul Art Foundation, Dar El-Nimer and Haven for Artists, international oriented galleries - a.o. Sfeir Semler - and a contemporary museum-to-be, BeMa, opening in 2023.
Thanks to the sincere and attentive explanations of curators, gallerists and volunteers on the art they represented, I am beginning to understand a first little-bit of art made in a context of war and political upheaval.
The continuous urge to make art, in all kind of forms, might be a vulnerable but also a strong line in this history - sometimes seeking space from within prisons or camps and sometimes from outside, in surrounding countries. The power of art is palpable.
On the first picture: volunteer of BeMa explaining on the goals of the new museum, on Beirut Artfair; on the second the team of Dalloul Art Foundation sharing on the comprehensive collection of Arabic art, on the third a detail of the exhibition La Mer Patrie in Dar El-Nimer, on the last a detail of the exhibition in Sfeir Semler. For a few more posts these days also see
@ Beirut Lebanon - لبنان.بيروت
