Flight 405-Gallery

The opening show of the Beirut Gallery "FLIGHT 405" is a show about identities, about globalism and local roots . All works have a link to Lebanon, to the Arab countries or to the Mediterranean sea. Almost all works have been produced by the artists especially for this show.

THE ATLAS GROUP / WALID RAAD (a lebanese artist group based in New York and Beirut) presents a new body of work"sweet talk". It is a mapping study of the city of Beirut, its urbanistic structure and of the buildings from the late 50ies until the middle of the 70ies, which is the growth period of Beirut downtown!

ELGER ESSER (the German photo artist * 1967 in Stuttgart) came twice to Lebanon, he made beautiful new painterly Landscapes in Lebanon: in Enfeh, in Naqura and in Saida.

ALFREDO JAAR (the Chilean concept artist based in New York) who works about human rights in countries which have suffered civil wars... He made an installation with six lightboxes: four in the entrance Hall and two at the end of the show all calling for a better world: "teach us to outgrow our madness".

HIROYUKI MASUYAMA ( the Japanese artist *1968 ) he flew from Paris to Beirut and took a photo from the window of the plane all 20 seconds. He compiled these hundreds of photos to a lightbox of 10 meters length covering the whole distance of the flight between both cities.

EMILY JACIR (the palestinean artist * 1970 and living in New York ) presents a two channel video installation: "Ramallah-New York" : a puzzle mounted between those two cities. The spectator does not know what city is on which video... It is the situation of a person living in a foreign country... in exile and belonging to another home country...

AMAL KENAWY ( it is an Egyptian artist *1974, living in Cairo) works about her intimate feminine life...Her mediums of expression are: video, trickfilm, sculpture and drawings.

TILL KRAUSE ( a German conceptual artist *1965, living in Hamburg ) he rode by bycicle to Beirut mapping the city through its restaurants and food.

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO (the famous Arte Povera Italian artist) created a new installation: a conference table with a mirror surface in the shape of the Mediterranean sea, surrounded by 23 seats representing all countries surrounding the Mediterranean sea.

AKRAM ZAATARI ( the lebanese video artist * 1966, based in Beirut) He works about memory, history and identity in Lebanon presenting his video installation "desert panorama " based on historical photographic archive documents.