{"id":35270,"date":"2024-11-22T11:21:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T09:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=35270"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:42:28","slug":"in-lebanon-art-is-a-matter-of-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/in-lebanon-art-is-a-matter-of-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"In Lebanon, Art is a Matter of Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"
Galleries and cultural venues have reopened, but Lebanon still faces canceled international events due to the ongoing war and evacuation orders.<\/h5>\n

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Nada Ghosn<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Although galleries and cultural venues have reopened this week, international events have been cancelled. The Lebanese scene is adapting as best it can to the war situation, despite fear, stress and evacuation orders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Resilience, did you say resilience? \u201cIt\u2019s no longer resilience, it\u2019s exhaustion,\u201d says Lina Kiryakos, director of the Sfeir Semler gallery in Beirut. \u201cIt\u2019s an inhuman form of violence. Even if we\u2019re still alive, we\u2019re at our wits\u2019 end. Lebanon is the laboratory of a futuristic war; we’re all part of a game. It’s frightening to realize that this exists.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After five years of protests, along with political, economic and health crises, and the explosion at the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, the war in Gaza has spread to the land of the cedars, already on its knees. “As I speak, a drone is hovering overhead, and the southern suburbs are being bombed. Since this morning, there have been 12 evacuation notices. We\u2019re trying to carry on doing our job, but it takes an exhausting amount of energy,\u201d says Lina Kiryakos.<\/span>
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\"Walid
Walid Raad, “Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut) _ Solidere, 1994-1997,” 1994-1997\/2019. Multi-channel video, color, silent
05:10:00, loop (courtesy Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reality Beckons<\/h4>\n

In September, when war broke out, the Sfeir-Semler gallery, like all the others, decided to close its doors. But the reopening of public schools at the beginning of November prompted a return to cultural venues. \u201cThe rules haven\u2019t been established, but we\u2019re getting a better understanding of the contours of the war,” explains Lina Kiryakos. \u201cWe’re getting used to this new reality, even if it puts pressure on programming and opening hours. Our team comes from different parts of the city and we can’t expose them to danger. Despite the situation, people want to keep working, and audiences want to do things that are fun and feel good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Already this summer, the situation was a heavy one. The gallery, which operates in the downtown area and in the Quarantaine harbor district, had decided to cancel the opening of Walid Raad\u2019s exhibition <\/span>Festival d\u2019(in)gratitude<\/span><\/i>, scheduled to run from August 7, 2024 to January 4, 2025. \u201c<\/span>Another exhibition at a threatening historical moment<\/span><\/i>,\u201d stated the invitation. Like many contemporary Lebanese artists, Walid Raad\u2019s works deal with such moments and what they make obvious, possible, probable, thinkable, imaginable and easy to say. His exhibition in the gallery\u2019s two Beirut spaces features both new and recent works.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mohamed
Mohamed Al Mufti, “Beirut,” acrylic on canvas, 100x100cm, 2023 (courtesy of the artist).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beirut-based Syrian painter and architect Mohamed Al-Mufti<\/a>, on the other hand, isn\u2019t working on a new exhibition at the moment. For him, it’s hard to shake off the anger, rage and sense of injustice. \u201cEverything is on hold, for obvious reasons. It frees me from deadlines and pressure, so I’m experimenting a lot, exploring and testing new media, new techniques, maybe new subjects,\u201d he admits.<\/span><\/p>\n

For most of those working in the arts scene, it’s impossible to look ahead to 2025. Because artists and works are mostly abroad, flights are disrupted and cargo ships no longer arrive. International fairs such as Frieze and Art Basel go some way to filling the gap, as does the presence of a Sfeir-Semler branch in Hamburg. But the gigantic resources put into Walid Raad’s exhibition by this museum-quality gallery cannot be amortized by the passage of collectors and curators to Beirut.<\/span><\/p>\n

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