Press
"Wael Shawky has brought a bold musical film to the Egyptian Pavilion. In Drama 1882, the Alexandria-born artist creates a parable confronting history’s grip on the present.
Set against the backdrop of occupation in Egypt, the film delves into the nationalist fervor of the 1879–82 Urabi Revolution. The violent peasant uprising against the Egyptian monarch’s susceptibility to imperial influence eventually backfired and became a catalyst for British rule, which lasted until 1956."
"Depending on who you ask, the Phoenician princess Europa was either wooed or assaulted by the Greek god Zeus, who became her lover after disguising himself as a bull. Lebanon’s representative, Monira Al Solh, seems to view Europa’s seduction as nonconsensual. Take one painting in Al Solh’s expansive installation A Dance with Her Myth (2024) showing a bound-up figure of ambiguous gender identity beside a bull on its back. Whatever is happening here, it isn’t pleasant. But Al Solh, keen to complicate the mythology surrounding Europa, never portrays this princess as a victim."
"Through an impressive range of 41 pieces, including sculptures, drawings, paintings, embroidery, and video, Al Solh focuses on the ancient Phoenician character of Europa and rewrites her narrative of domination by reimagining her as a powerful protagonist. Painted canvases hanging from the ceiling depict Europa engaging with her abductor, the bull (Zeus). In the paintings, Europa is pregnant with the bull standing at her side, connected to the bull with an umbilical cord, or even morphing into the bull herself."
‘The woman lies on her back, feet in the air. She lazily spins an urn, balanced on her hands, containing a bull’s head. During the 12-minute film in which the bull-twirling goddess appears, a haphazard narrative emerges out of images — many of them animated drawings which boast a frail, enchanting quirkiness — that include lapping waves, dancers in antique robes and onions which weep purple ink. Lines from a poem flash intermittently: “I looked for a magnificent white bull . . . but all I found was a goat.” “I looked for Europa passively carried . . . she held him in a jar.”‘
"The Pavilion of Lebanon will present A Dance with her Myth, an exhibition by Mounira Al Solh and curated by Nada Ghandour, for the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Situated in the Arsenale, Mounira Al Solh’s 180m2 multimedia installation, composed of 41 pieces—drawings, paintings, sculptures, embroideries, and video— creates a bridge between myth and reality, revisiting the rapt of Europa to offer a new perspective on the aspirations and challenges faced by women today. On canvas, paper and screen, the artist’s creative process combines allegorical narrative with a documentary approach, appropriation with diversion, and gives realistic, poetic, and very contemporary representations."
"It is said that when Pandora’s box was opened, Zeus looked to earth from his abode on Mount Olympus and saw wars, bloodshed, carnage, and unrest. Horrified, the king of the ancient Greek gods flew into a fit of rage and vowed to destroy humanity for its corruption. And so, he commanded a deluge. ‘When mankind got to that level of power-worship and dictatorship, Zeus created the flood to erase it,’ says Egyptian artist Wael Shawky when describing his film, I Am the Hymns of the New Temple (2023)."
"What’s a museum for? It’s a question that’s been exercising art’s collecting institutions increasingly in recent years, as they try to respond to criticisms coming from all angles of their supposed power and privilege. A Model, a three-stage project mounted by Mudam’s recently appointed director Bettina Steinbrügge, opened with Rayyane Tabet’s standalone installation ‘prelude’ late last year, a work now joined by this second, whole-museum exhibition, which mixes selections from the museum’s collection with other works, all of which variously highlight the implicit parameters of the museum – what can and can’t be here, and why. It will be joined by a third exhibition, Epilogue by Jason Dodge, in April."
"Running from March 13 until July 27, 2024, Sfeir Semler Gallery presents the second edition of ‘The Blind Date’ a concept which debuted in 2017. The show features a group exhibition with artists from outside of the gallery’s roster. Coincidentally, the five invited artists are all young female artists with diverse practices and expressions, all connected to the Arab-speaking world."
"Sfeir Semler Gallery Beirut presents Marwan Rechmaoui’s latest solo show, ‘Chasing the Sun’ at Downtown, Beirut from March 13 until July 20, 2024. Marwan Rechmaoui, known for his conceptual sculptures in concrete, metal, rubber, and wax, delves into an exploration of urban socio-geographies through the lens of play. Reflecting on childhood memories in Beirut, Rechmaoui revisits his youth through playful installations, including marbles, kites, and hopscotch outlines, drawing from sketches made in the 1990s. These recreations are juxtaposed with wax representations of nature, highlighting the transformative power of childhood experiences."
"With every act of violence, a ripple of impacts travels far beyond the epicentre. These repercussions often go undocumented, remaining invisible to outside observers, but can leave a legacy that lingers far beyond the singular initial trauma and one which might even carry positive or poetic qualities.
When on 4 August 2020 a warehouse of ammonium nitrate stored in the Port of Beirut exploded, resulting in 218 deaths and 7000 injuries, the shockwaves spread for miles across the city, damaging buildings and smashing windows on the way. Environmental engineer and political activist Ziad Abichaker began collecting this glass from buildings all over Beirut, sending it to glassblowers in the north of Lebanon who were struggling to source raw materials thanks to continual currency devaluations. They transformed the glass from the explosion debris into traditional glass water pitchers, transforming a violent act into a simple gesture of solidarity that can help new resonances emerge."
"Ancient civilisations, myths and the transformative nature of stories are themes that Egyptian artist Wael Shawky – who will this year represent Egypt at the Venice Biennale – has explored in different facets throughout his practice, drawing links between our contemporary culture and historical traditions. His latest solo exhibition I am Hymns of the New Temples, premiering in the MENA region at Beirut’s Sfeir-Semler Gallery, combines his signature research-led and multimedia approach in the presentation of a project rooted in cosmology across different bygone pantheons.
Inspired by ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology, the exhibition is anchored by an hour-long film – from which the show derives its title – that Shawky first produced for the Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters programme, the contemporary art initiative organised by the Pompeii Archaeological Park (PAP). He won the tender PAC-Plan for Contemporary Art in 2020, supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture and the PAP, and first screened the film in Pompeii in 2023."
"Born in Paris and raised in Tangier, Yto Barrada has, in two decades, gone from being a student of political science at the Sorbonne, as well as her family’s historian and archivist, to a prolific producer of photographs, prints, sculptures, films, artist books and para-institutional projects. Her solo exhibition at Pace in London, Bite the Hand, opens in March and comes on the heels of presentations at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Festival d’Automne in Paris and the Barbican in London. She simultaneously runs two nonprofits, both in Tangier: the arthouse theatre Cinémathèque de Tanger and The Mothership, a dye garden and artist residency."
"As she prepares her solo show for Lebanon’s pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, the artist discusses some of her recent work."
"Rayyane Tabet has transformed part MUDAM into a chilly twilight zone, in which signifiers of domestic comfort become mechanisms of basic survival and the modernist utopianism of the architect’s vision is contorted into something altogether more uncertain. It is the best kind of site-specific art: a thoughtful, unsentimental meditation on the particularities of its host institution and a powerful retort to the well-meant but hubristic orthodoxy from which it sprang. Its resonances continue to ring in the ears long after you have walked through the exit."
"King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or Ithra, recently opened “Etel Adnan: Between East and West,” a major retrospective exhibition showcasing 41 works of the late Lebanese-American artist, poet and philosopher. Revered as one of the most renowned contemporary artists from the region — and still considered a major figure in the Arab modernism movement — the space at Ithra’s gallery is the first solo exhibition of Adnan’s work in Saudi Arabia, running until June 30."