Beirut, Beyrut, Beyrouth, Beyrout

In the exhibition Beirut, Beyrut, Beyrouth, Beyrout, the North meets the Middle East. The exhibition highlights and queries a socio-politically complex society and its history, with sharpness, gravity, heartache and humour. The title points to the cultural diversity that Lebanon, and the Middle East as a whole, represent – marked by long traditions of being a multicultural and multilingual region.

The exhibition includes work by Mounira Al Solh, Monira Al Qadiri, Ziad Antar, Ali Cherri, Ahmad Ghossein, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lamia Joreige, Mazen Kerbaj, Stéphanie Saadé, Lucien Samaha, Helle Siljeholm, Suha Traboulsi, Raed Yassin and Akram Zaatari.

In recent years, the art world as a whole has developed a fascination for the Beirut art scene. This is due in part to the sheer concentration of talent, but also to the seduction of a scene that is multi-generational, supportive, enthusiastic, generous, expansive and truly international. Many of the artists are multilingual and possess double citizenships. We dare to characterize this sense of unity as one of a kind. The art scene is experienced as – at least from the outside – an inclusive one.

Discussions surrounding art, art’s agency in society, and how one should relate to the art world are constantly present. There’s room for differences. Values are constantly scrutinized. By having one foot planted in the Middle East and the other in Europe, similar to the historic lines of Lebanon, this questioning becomes a natural ingredient in every conversation. 

In light of our conversations with the artists and from the artworks we’ve seen during our working process, various interconnected motifs have emerged which relate to space, landscape, the soil beneath our feet, as well as drawn up borders of different character and the relation to history and memory.

While this tendency is not unique to Beirut solely – it can be observed in other places and spaces – it is this very sort of questioning; to dig where one stands – wherein the artist utilises a location as a starting point in order to question the time we currently live and breathe in – that is characteristic of contemporary art emerging from Beirut.

In this context, it is important to keep in mind that every place is unique. Beirut is unique. When an artist starts digging, literally and metaphorically, they are confronted by unique cultural humus within a remarkable constellation of earthly layers. The city has undergone many wars during the 20th century, and the material destruction has been immense, both historically and contemporaneously. Even still, Beirut has risen on its own ruins and reshaped itself. The architectural theorist Jad Tabet describes the city: ”It’s true that the war is the greatest city architect in history, but it’s also true that people reshape what war creates and enrich it with humanistic dimensions”. Open wounds still exist in Beirut; stories that are left in the dark, memories that are lost or at risk of being forgotten. The political situation is unstable and there are constant ongoing conflicts in and with neighbouring countries. All of his has an effect on the formation and mentality of the city, just like the creativity, words and dreams of its inhabitants enriches it. How does the artist tackle this place? The history? The current? 

Lebanon’s capital is still spelled in many different ways, which remains visible throughout the city scape; on hotel signs, restaurants, street signs, institutions, maps, postcards and more. The different ways of spelling are most probably due to interpretations made from the Arabic letters to Latin into English and French. This speaks a lot about the different periods in the city’s history. The name is thought to originate from Canaan-Phoenician be’erot for well, which refers to the underground springs. But mostly, it is a reminder of the fact that a place is never equipped with only one history or one tale, but is in fact surrounded by a myriad of voices and readings.

The exhibition is curated by Marianne Hultman and Ýrr Jónasdóttir with Birta Guðjónsdóttir. It will be shown at Oslo Kunstforening, Norway; Ystads konstmuseum, Sweden and Listasafn Íslands, Iceland.

Beirut, Beyrut, Beyrouth, Beyrout includes a collaboration with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival and Cinemateket, Oslo.

The exhibition has received support from Nordic Culture Point.

The opening is kindly sponsored by Oslo Ice Cream by Nayla Audi, which has found a temporary presence in the city of Oslo for the occasion. The artisanal ice cream shop has a long history of close ties to the artistic community in Lebanon.

For the opening, Mazen Kerbaj will present one of his unorthodox solos for deconstructed trumpet. He cannot tell us more about it since it will be, like most of his works, completely improvised.