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فير زملر غاليري Sfeir-Semler Gallery

AREF EL RAYESS (Aley, Lebanon 1928-2005) was one of the most prolific and versatile artist of his generation, with an oeuvre that spans painting, drawing, collage and sculpture. A restless wanderer, his practice was constantly evolving, nourished by encounters and experiences that led him to live and work around the globe.

From Senegal in the late 1940s he was regularly traveling to France, throughout the 1950s, where he attended classes at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and as well as the free studios of Fernand Leger, André Lhôte and La Grande Chaumière. In 1957, he came back to Lebanon and established his own atelier, only to leave again in 1959, this time to Italy where he spent four years between Rome and Florence.

The solo exhibition presented in our Hamburg space takes as a point of departure a body of work produced by the artist while in Italy, that includes both some of his early abstract paintings, very much in the style of the Ecole de Paris, as well as political pieces that comment on events happening in the Arab world, such as the Algerian war of independence.

The late 60s and the 70s mark a crucial moment in El Rayess’ work. He settled in Lebanon where he was instrumental in the establishment of art centers and formal art schools, becoming a mentor and teacher to many. He was also very vocal in his criticism of the political establishment, and his oeuvre regularly tackled the geopolitics of the Arab world, often in the context of the cold war and the rise of Pan-Arabism

His Blood and Freedomworks, produced in the wake of the Arab defeat of 1967, or the Temps Moderne et Tiers Monde of 1974-75 depict war horrors but also reveal the artist’s fascination with socialist philosophy and his constant reflection on the state of the world. This is a period during which he mostly produced figurative work. Often with a high dominance of red, these paintings take a stand, and call to action.

A thinker, writer and political commentator, El Rayess wrote a manifesto in 1972 entitled With Whom and Against Whom and in 1975, while visiting Algeria, he produced a series of drawings depicting the Lebanese civil war, published as the book The Road to Peace. Original restored drawings are presented in the exhibition alongside a copy of the bound book, which was censored in Lebanon at the time and was never formally published.

In 1963 El Rayess was commissioned to represent Lebanon at the New York World Fair. He spent the following years in the USA and only returned home to Lebanon in 1967. During this “American phase”, he produced a seminal series known as the Flying Carpets. Evocative of long voyages and dreamy landscapes, the hues of greens and mauves were inspired by expansive sceneries the artist encountered traveling through rural America, and that contrasted with big cities.

Somewhat reminiscent of Mark Rothko’s work, whom he met and exchanged with while in the US, the colors here become fluid, and melt into each-other making for softer, nuanced canvases.

In 1978 he participated in the International Art Exhibition in Solidarity with Palestine, and shortly after moved to Saudi Arabia where he spent the best part of the 1980s. Initially commissioned to create large-scale public sculptures in Jeddah, Tabuk and Riyadh, El Rayess was also an advisor to the Jeddah Open Air Museum. For several years, faced with the landscapes of Saudi, he painted deserts, repeatedly, compulsively, an almost mystical, meditative exercise that turned dry lands into abstract, sculptural, color fields. 

Wherever he went, Aref El Rayess was associating with individuals and groups that were at the avant-garde of artistic production; and managed to capture through his work the zeitgeist of the place and time. The exhibition ultimately reveals the multiple facets of an oeuvre which has been absent for too long from the regional and international scenes.