Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS

10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS

BLOG VIEW

FILTER CONTENTS

Published on September 29, 2016 — Leave a comment Best of Beirut

written by India Stoughton

BEIRUT

http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 1/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS Selections looks back at some of the best shows of the summer season, and forward to upcoming events that promise to be worth the wait.

Collective Places Galerie Janine Rubeiz July 13 to August 18

It seems to be a prerequisite of living that the environment around us, the people we see and the things we do each day become mundane, to be navigated on autopilot while we daydream about other things — or lose ourselves in our smart phones. In Collective Places, photographers Chaghig Arzoumanian, Myriam Boulos, Elsie Haddad and Lara Tabet challenged viewers to reengage with the day-to-day and to uncover genuine, individual responses to the lived environment we so oen tune out. Shot in black and white and exhibited in small formats, the four photographers’ works were in themselves easy to dismiss, requiring the viewer to look past the obvious and reect on the distinctiveness and beauty of the seemingly everyday. From a blurry eld of sunowers, all facing together towards the sun, to the wrinkled neck of a bedridden patient, the skin beside her clavicle marked with meandering lines from a healing wound that resemble winding pathways on a map, the photographs imbued seemingly random scenes with a sudden signicance. Arzoumanian, Boulos, Haddad and Tabet’s photographs told a series of stories, each captured in a single image. Together, they served as a reminder to take pleasure in the elusive magic of the mundane. http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 2/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS

Bassel Saadi: A Homage to Mahmoud Hammad Agial Art Gallery July 21 to August 20

Self-taught Syrian artist Bassel Saadi’s steel sculptures began life as paper cut outs. The artist dedicated the exhibition to pioneering modernist Syrian painter Mahmoud Hammad, but there were traces too of Hussein Madi, in the bright primary colours and simple, repetitive shapes — and in turn traces of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Saadi’s sculptures’ fragile origins gave them the feel of origami forms, each one constructed from shaped, bent and overlapping sheets of steel. Composed of multiple triangles in all shapes and sizes, placed against a jagged, asymmetrical base that sat ush to

http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 3/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS the wall, Saadi’s works experimented with colour, pattern and texture, playing with two- dimensional and three-dimensional perspectives. Each beginning from the same premise and taking it in a new direction, the sculptures worked well as a set, allowing viewers to reect on the diverse potential inherent in Saadi’s chosen approach. Simple grey bases festooned with protruding triangles of bright red, yellow and green gave a very dierent visual eect than similar shapes jutting from a base decorated with bright orange and mauve polka dots. Seen en masse, Saadi’s sculptures appeared like a child’s game, playful experiments with colour and form behind which a deeper meaning may or may not lurk, waiting to be uncovered.

Let’s Talk About the Weather — Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis Sursock Museum July 14 to October 24

In the wake of Lebanon’s almost year-long rubbish crisis, and amid slowly building worldwide panic over the now very evident consequences of global warming, Let’s Talk About the Weather — Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis is a highly topical exhibition. Featuring work by 17 local and international artists, it addresses pressing environmental issues including climate change, the potential for future ecological disaster, and the relationship between human and planet. Curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and Nora Razian, Let’s Talk About the Weather is a rich and varied exhibition that requires a substantial time commitment. It’s worth it. Highlights include a powerful photo series by Congolese artist Sammy Baloji, capturing http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 4/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the Chinese government is permitted to mine for precious materials in exchange for rehabilitating the country’s infrastructure. American artist Claire Pentecost’s elaborate installation piece Amor Fati, made using polluted water, hand-blown glass and other materials gathered in Lebanon, explores the links between petroleum and fossils. Local artists have also produced outstanding work. Marwan Rechmaoui is showing four surprisingly beautiful cubes, made use compacted plastic water bottles, aluminium cans, rubber tires and corrugated cardboard, while Jessika Khazrik’s exploration of the history of toxic waste brought from Italy and illegally dumped in Lebanon in 1987 is fascinating to behold.

Haig Avazian: I Am Sick But I Am Alive Sfeir-Semler Gallery September 1 to December 30

An artist, writer and critic, Haig Aivazian brings together diverse inuences and practices. His rst solo show at Sfeir-Semler’s Beirut gallery, I Am Sick But I Am Alive, consists of several installations from the eponymous series of work, which he began in 2014. Aivazian reects on the history and present state of modal Oriental music in his work, which is enormously varied, ranging from sculptures, drawing and lm, to a live choir performance that took place last year as part of the Istanbul Biennial. Using material forms to reect on a history of sound, Aivazian explores music as a receptacle of historical http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 5/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS resonances, which nd voice through musicians’ bodies and the instruments they play. Through these sometimes inaudible resonances, the artist seeks to reect on displacement and amnesia, as well as resilience and remembrance. With its historical and geopolitical overtones, I Am Sick But I Am Alive slots neatly into Aivazian’s wider body of work, which oen weaves together personal and public narratives to draw parallels between seemingly unrelated events, some historical and others undocumented, to reect on the mechanisms of how histories come to be told.

Beirut Art Fair Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure Center September 15 to 18

http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 6/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS

Now in its seventh edition, the Beirut Art Fair is really hitting its stride. Last year’s edition attracted more than 21,000 visitors — six times the 3500 who attended the inaugural edition of the fair in 2010. This year’s fair features 40 local and international galleries with links to the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia art scene, and is once again anked by Beirut Art Week, which runs across the city from September 13 to 20. New this year are two prominent exhibitions within the framework of the fair: Bankmed- sponsored Lebanon Modern! Women Artists in Lebanon, 1945 — 1970, and SGBL’s REVEALING, dedicated to young emerging artists from the region. Selections is delighted to be in charge of the SELECTIONS VIP LOUNGE, a networking space for collectors and VIPs to make connections while admiring a dramatic large-scale installation by artist Vika Kova. Returning events include the Byblos Bank Award, now in its h year, which is dedicated to supporting the work of young Lebanese photographers. In addition to the on-site attractions, this year’s programme includes an exceptional opportunity for VIPs to visit the private residences of some of the city’s most prominent art collectors. There is also an option for visiting art lovers to participate in a nine-day grand tour of Lebanon’s cultural sites and museums.

The Silent Echo Baalbeck Museum September 17 to October 17

http://www.selectionsarts.com/2016/09/best-of-beirut-3/ 7/15 10/4/2016 Best of Beirut | SELECTIONS

The Silent Echo marks the rst time that the archaeological site of Baalbeck’s museum is hosting an art exhibition. Curated by Karina El Helou and organised by French non-prot organisation STUDIOCUR/ART, the exhibition features work by nine local and international artists: Ziad Antar, Danica Dakic, Laurent Grasso, Suzan Hiller, Theo Mercier, Marwan Rechmaoui, Ai Weiwei, Paola Yacoub and Cynthia Zaven. The works on show reect on the swi changes brought to the Levant region by globalisation and the role of archaeology in the current socio-political context. From Antar’s Derivable VI, seven sculptures based on hidden monuments, to Dakic’s La Grande Galerie, an installation capturing a family in a eld, posed in front of a photo of the ruins, to Hiller’s The Last Silent Movie, a 220-minute video work consisting of a soundtrack of extinct and endangered languages against a black screen, they explore the role, meaning and signicance of the artefact. A conference held at the Sursock Museum on September 19, entitled The Silent Echo Archaeology, Obsolete Past Iconoclasm, will bring together eight international speakers to discuss our enduring fascination with the artefacts of the past, the recent destruction of artefacts in the region, and the role of archaeology in contemporary art.

A version of this article appeared in print in Selections, The Collectors Issue #38, pages 20-25.