staging

BeMA: Beacon of Hope

Mandy — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 16:01:58 +0000

Panel Discussion on the Beirut Museum of Art – BeMA

BeMA USA and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) held a conversation with MoMA director Glenn Lowry – featuring Award-winning architects Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, the President of BeMA Board Joe Saddi, the President of BeMA USA Lili Chopra, and newly announced co-directors of the Beirut Museum of Art- BeMA, Juliana Khalaf and Taline Boladian.

The guests joined Glenn Lowry to speak about the establishment of the Beirut Museum of Art, its innovative architectural design, the museum’s extensive collection and commitment to conservation, and its ongoing, pre-opening programs that engage communities across Lebanon.

The vision that drives the Museum forward in a country assailed by compounded economic and financial crises, exemplifies the potential for art and culture to serve as a form of resistance and courage, and build a more open, creative, and sustainable future.

Beirut Museum of Art – BeMA broke ground in February 2022 and is scheduled to open in 2026. The building design created by Lebanese-born architect Amale Andraos of WORKac was announced to international acclaim in 2018.

When

Monday, November 7th, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Where

The Museum of Modern Art
The Celeste Bartos Theater
4 West 54 Street
New York, NY 10019

BeMA’s Groundbreaking ceremony – 25th of February 2022

Mandy — Mon, 02 May 2022 17:31:56 +0000

Embarking on a historic Journey

BeMA broke ground on February 25, 2022, signaling a new era for modern and contemporary art in Lebanon. The launch took place in a ceremony attended by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati as well as political and cultural figures.

“BeMA is envisioned to boost cross-cultural encounters and is an act of resistance and courage for an open Lebanon, daring defiance in the face of violence, pessimism, and frustration”

Joe Saddi, President of BeMA Board of Trustees

A conversation between Glenn Lowry, Director of The MoMA and Lebanese artist Marwan Rechmaoui

Mandy — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 21:34:38 +0000

The webinar, held on June 30, featured a conversation between Glenn Lowry, Director of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Lebanese artist Marwan Rechmaoui, discussing the changing topography of Beirut and the Lebanese complex cultural mosaic of places and identities.

Speakers
Glenn Lowry

Glenn D. Lowry is the sixth director of The Museum of Modern Art. He leads a staff of over 800 people and directs an active program of exhibitions, acquisitions, and publications. A strong advocate of contemporary art, he has lectured and written extensively in support of contemporary art and artists and the role of museums in society, among other topics. He is a member of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Board of Trustees, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a resident member of the American Philosophical Society. He also is a Trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and is an Officier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (2004) and a member of the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan (2020). Born in 1954 in New York City and raised in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Mr. Lowry received a B.A. degree (1976) magna cum laude from Williams College, and an M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in history of art from Harvard University.

Marwan Rechmaoui

Created from industrial materials such as concrete, metal, rubber, tar, textile, and glass, Marwan Rechmaoui’s work reflects his methodical study of cartography, demographics and urbanization. Focusing on sociodemographic, architecture and cultural histories of cities and mirroring the sociopolitical structure and complex multi-cultural history of the Arab world; he has produced a variety of works, some of which incorporate maps of city streets, objects with references to urban domestic life and landmarks and histories of Beirut.

Rechmaoui’s work has been presented in a number of solo and group exhibitions, including Slanted Squares, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, the Netherlands (2019); Truth is black, write over it with a mirage’s light, Darat al Funun, Amman (2018); Cycles of Collapsing Progress, Oscar Niemeyer’s Trade Fair, Tripoli, Lebanon (2018); Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017); Home Works 7, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2015); Istanbul Biennial 13 (2015); Here & Elsewhere, New Museum, New York (2014); Cadavre Exquis, Suite Méditerranéenne, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, France (2013); Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); On the Edgware Road, Serpentine Gallery, London (2012) and Sharjah Biennial 7 (2005). His work can be found in the collections of the Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah and Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. Rechmaoui is the recipient of the Bonnefantenmuseum Award for Contemporary Art, Maastricht, the Netherlands (2019).

He was born in Beirut, where he continues to live and work.

Lebanon, Then and Now 2006-2020

Mandy — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 11:30:10 +0000

BeMA USA is partnering with the Middle East Institute, APEAL and the Arab World Institute (IMA) to present Lebanon, Then and Now 2006-2020, a virtual photography exhibition by Lebanese artists.

Lebanon Then and Now: Photography from 2006-2020

Lebanon Then and Now: Photography from 2006-2020 is a unique collaboration between cultural institutions spanning from Washington DC to Paris to Beirut with a shared goal: to bring into focus some of the dizzying social, political and economic developments that have marked Lebanon over the last decade and a half. Produced by the Middle East Institute (MEI), with its partners, the Paris-based Arab World Institute, BeMA USA (the Beirut Museum of Art, USA), APEAL (The Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of the Arts in Lebanon) and the Beirut Center for Photography, Lebanon Then and Now: Photography from 2006-2020 presents, under one virtual roof, selections from two seminal shows: Lebanon: Between Reality and Fiction, organized by the Arab World Institute and Revolt, organized by APEAL and the Beirut Center for Photography. Together they tell a very cohesive and contemporary story about the country, while highlighting the critical role that Lebanon’s artists and creatives play as the interpreters and archivists of the country’s unfolding narrative.

Originally planned for the summer of 2020 in the newly launched MEI Art Gallery, dedicated to showcasing contemporary and modern art from the Middle East and the diaspora in Washington DC, Lebanon Then and Now has been reimagined as a virtual exhibit in light of the corona virus pandemic. The show, featuring 17 Lebanese photographers and 50 images, presents two very different perspectives on Lebanon. One offers a view into a country exploring the aftermath of its long civil war (1975-1990); while the other takes audiences inside the raw emotion of the street protests that erupted on October 17, 2019 – and continue to this day – in response to the corruption and political mismanagement that triggered Lebanon’s recent financial collapse.

Virtual Gallery Tour

Panel Discussion

Panel discussion: Lebanon Through the Lens of Photography

Mandy — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 11:26:27 +0000

The webinar, held on July 16, featured speakers from the exhibit’s lead participating partners, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and the Beirut Museum of Art, USA, as well as the exhibit’s curator and artists. They reflected on the significance and the power of the show during this difficult moment in Lebanon’s history as it faces near financial collapse. They also explored the role of photography as a medium to represent, reflect upon and amplify a country’s economic and social condition, as well as the power it has to capture the raw emotion and immediacy of an uprising and to inspire solidarity and a sense of unity.

Panel Discussion: The Changing Role of Museums in the Middle East, Washington DC, April 2019

Mandy — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 13:27:49 +0000

BeMA USA and the Middle East Institute (MEI) co-organized a panel conversation on the changing social and cultural significance of museums in Lebanon, and more broadly in the Middle East. Key topics addressed how they seek to move beyond their traditional role as authorities in the arts to become more relevant to the cultural and socio-economic concerns of communities at a local, regional, and international level.

Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art(MoMA ), Peggy Loar, President of International Museum Planning Consultants and founding Director of the new National Museum of Qatar, and Taline Boladian, Member of BeMA USA, were brought together at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C. on Monday, April 29 to reflect on the future of museums in the Middle East. NPR Art Desk Reporter Neda Ulaby moderated the conversation.

To view the complete version of the panel discussion, click on the link here.

A Collaboration between the Middle East Institute (MEI) and BeMA USA – May 2019.

Symposium: BeMACC – Beirut Museum of Art Collection Collaborative, Houston, April 2019

Mandy — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 13:27:44 +0000

BeMACC was launched at Rice University, in Houston, Texas, on April 26^th 2019 during a two-day symposium discussing collection maintenance and other pertinent topics relating to BeMA’s collection. Speakers included a range of experts from a variety of institutions, from foundations to museums, sharing their experiences and thoughts on innovative methods that render such a cultural heritage publicly available. By hosting this event, Rice University sought to generate new models for collaboration in the world of collection maintenance.

The Beirut Museum of Art Collection Collaborative (BeMACC) is a digital research platform, which showcases the collection belonging to the Lebanese Ministry of Culture. The platform has been made available to the public and is free of charge. By presenting these Lebanese and Levantine works online, which will eventually form the basis of the Beirut Museum of Art – BeMA’s collection, BeMACC aims to facilitate a transmission of information regarding the topic. Art historians and museum professionals who are conducting research on artists and works of art will have the opportunity to add and link relevant information to the images, while curious parties can simply browse through the collection’s treasures. The hope is that through BeMACC, the collection can go beyond boarders and can begin an international dialogue without even leaving its premises.

Click here for the symposium speakers and topics. Click here to visit BeMACC

A Collaboration between Rice University and BeMA USA – April 2019

Awareness Dinner: BeMA USA – An Evening at the University Club, New York City, May 2017

Mandy — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 13:18:09 +0000

The BeMA USA awareness dinner was held at the prestigious University Club in New York City, which brought together more than one hundred influential people from both the American art world and the Lebanese diaspora.

The evening program included a short film and presentation about the Beirut Museum of Art, followed by speeches which emphasized the catalyst role of cultural investment and the establishment of a new museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Lebanon.

Exhibition: Convergence: New Art from Lebanon, Washington DC, April 2010

Mandy — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 12:00:56 +0000

The first comprehensive North American exhibition curated in the aftermath of Lebanon’s tumultuous civil war (1975-1990), Convergence brought together nearly 50 paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs and media-based art by 29 artists—more than a third of them women— based primarily in Beirut. Reflecting the memories, hopes, dreams and political and religious realities of a culture seeking to reclaim itself, the exhibition introduced Americans to the vitality and volatility of today’s art from Lebanon.

Convergence was held in 2010 at the Katzen Arts Center in the College of Arts and Sciences at the American University in Washington D.C.

Participating Artists:

Ayman Baalbaki
Oussama Baalbaki
Lulu Baasiri
Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui
Huguette Caland
Joseph Chahfe
Chaouki Chamoun
Hala Dabaji
Amal Dagher
Mansour El Habre
Rim El Jundi
Mohamad El Rawas
Chawki Frenn
Bassam Geitani
Joseph Harb
Joumana Jamhouri
Nadim Karam
Nabil Nahas
Jean Pierre Watchi
Jocelyne Saab
Mario Saba
Marwan Sahmarani
Nada Sehnaoui
Kris Seraphin
Hanibal Srouji
Anita Toutikian
Katia Traboulsi
Paul Wakim

Film Series

A series of six feature-length works, three short films, and one documentary representing the best in contemporary Lebanese film.

After screening discussions were led by Jeffrey Middents, a professor and director of the Cinema Studies minor and world literature at the American University in Washington DC, and Alicia Sams, an Emmy-Award winning producer and director with extensive experience in both documentary and feature films.

NOT LIKE MY SISTER (2008) – Leyla Assaf Tengroth
THE NORTH ROAD (2008) – Carlos Chahine
BOSTA (2005) – Philippe Aractingi
UNDER THE BOMBS (2007) – Philippe Aractingi
ZOZO (2005) – Josef Fares
QUAND MARYAM S’EST DEVOILEE (2001) – Assad Fouladkar
AFTER SHAVE (2005) – Hany Tamba
BEIRUT OPEN CITY (2008) – Samir Habchi
ASHES (2003) – Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
THE KITE (2003) – Randa Chahal Sabag

Click here for films synopsis

Lebanese Film Series presented by the American University Museum in conjunction with the Embassy of Lebanon, the Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of the Arts in Lebanon (APEAL) and the exhibition, Convergence: New Art from Lebanon

The Kite
The film follows two star-crossed lovers from opposite ends of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Lamia, a Lebanese woman separated from the object of her affection, an Israeli patrolman named Youssef, by a maze of social and political barriers. An Arab himself, Youssef is ambivalent about guarding the border against a village occupied by his own family and relatives.

Zozo
Zozo grows up in Beirut. In spite of the civil war he leads a normal life with family, friends and classmates. But one day tragedy strikes and Zozo is torn from his family and forced to make his own way through life. His only hope is to get himself to Sweden, for him and unknown country.

Not Like My Sister
Rim Kerkatli rose to fame at the age of nine after starring in Assaf-Tengroth’s 1994 hit documentary Frihetsligan (Freedom League). The film offered Rim the opportunity to go to school, a privilege for young women from her village. But her freedom was short-lived. At the age of 13, she was forced to marry her father’s cousin. Rim’s younger sister, Dalida, does not want to share the same fate, and her struggle to defy traditional norms becomes the focus of Not Like My Sister. Filmmaker Leyla Assaf-Tengroth presents a stark documentary on forced marriage and honor killings in rural Syria.

After Shave
Mr. Raymond has lived alone in an old house in Beirut since his wife died. He is called on by Abou Milad, an old barber in the neighborhood who earns his living working out of cafés.

Under the Bombs
Zeina lives in Dubai. In the midst of a divorce, she sends her son Karim to stay with her sister in Kherbet Salem, a small village in South Lebanon, to spare him from his parents’ fighting. A few days later, war breaks out in Lebanon. Desperately worried, Zeina immediately heads to Lebanon via Turkey. Because of the blockade she does not reach the port of Beirut until the day of the ceasefire. There she meets Tony, the only taxi driver who agrees to take her to the South. Zerina and Tony set out in search of her lost child in a journey that brings them together as they encounter widespread death and destruction.

The North Road
Karim, who is in his mid-forties, has lived in France since his early teenage years. For the first time in many years he returns to Lebanon to transfer the remains of his father, who died during the war, from Beirut to his home village.

When Maryam Spoke Out
Based on a true story. A social film about a couple, Ziad and Maryam, who have a happy marriage, except that three years in, Maryam has still not had a baby. Ziad is compassionate and assures her that he still loves her. Yet Maryam cannot escape the growing pressure from the family, especially from her mother- in-law. She reacts by faking a pregnancy. Her family’s initial enthusiasm disappears when it becomes clear that Maryam and Ziad are not really expecting a baby.

Ashes
Nabil returns to Beirut with the ashes of his father who died abroad. He tries to overcome his bereavement while his family insists on respecting custom by burying a non-existent corpse.

Beirut Open City
Khaled is a young Egyptian man living in Beirut during the national reconstruction effort-a project that has fallen short of its promises and left many disillusioned. In solidarity with his fellow citizens, the aspiring filmmaker undertakes a cinematic project that reveals the dualism of modern-day Lebanon: its compassion and also its cruelty. While wandering through the city, Khaled encounters remarkable people on the streets who motivate characters in his vision. As he proceeds, however, the imaginary and the factual begin to intermingle. Eventually, Khalid finds himself a captive of the scenario he is writing and doomed to endure the fate of its characters.

Bosta
Bosta is the story of a group of dancers who perform the traditional Lebanese Dabkeh in a Techno style. After 15 years of exile in France, Kamal returns to Beirut with his mind set on one goal: to reunite the dance group he had formed with his school friends, whom he hasn’t seen since he left. But he also wants to make the bold move of introducing a Western flavor to the traditional Dabkeh. When the dancers audition before the jury of the National Dabkeh Festival, they are curtly rejected because they are disgracing the “only cultural icon left.” This prompts them to refurbish their old school bus and embark on a road trip across Lebanon to perform and introduce their pioneering dance to the public. As they struggle to win people over with their alternative spirit, each of the dancers realizes that they also embarked on a personal journey to reconnect with their childhood, their lost friendships, and the pains of the war and separation. It is a journey that leads the group of friends to turn the page on a painful past.

Moments – A Lecture by Nadim Karam

Given at the opening reception of CONVERGENCE: NEW ART FROM LEBANON

To view the complete version of the lecture, click on the link here

This lecture is composed as a series of moments, of issues that affected my trajectory as a person and came to be expressed as an artist. More and more I try to address communities and cities based on themes involving time, dreams and memories. I work to the scale of the city and co-operate with many of its people to realize a project. In the end the work is not absolute; it molds itself relative to the dynamics of the city. It is finished when it takes on its own life in the imagination of city dwellers.

Since we are here to celebrate the opening of an exhibition of Lebanese contemporary art in Washington, I felt the need to define what it is to be Lebanese. I found that we are best expressed by our diversity. Using a personal vocabulary I call ‘urban toys’, I experimentally replaced the cedar tree on the Lebanese flag with a multiplicity of forms, one after another. It struck me that, although its history is very different, diversity would also be the most apt word to describe America, so I transformed each of the fifty stars on the American flag. One of those stars, I suppose, would be Lebanese.

The 2006 attack on Lebanon by Israel made me think lengthily about what it means to be Lebanese. With my office closed overnight and myself later a refugee in the UK, this reflection inspired some 600 sketches and paintings.

Which takes us back to the origins of my temporary projects of urban sculptures in Beirut in the aftermath of the 17-year civil war. Returning from Japan in 1993, I found my country in ruins, the result of its people defending to the death their allegiance to different religious and political symbols. I wanted to create anti-symbols to illustrate this folly. I wanted to bring to the city a multiplicity and diversity of signs to provoke astonishment, curiosity and amusement, to break the grim attachment to symbols that had taken us beyond the brink. And, most importantly, I wanted them to be part of a moment in the city’s life; to appear, to move and then to leave.

I began with urban art installations at the Sursock Museum (1994) and the National Museum (1995); the first experimentation of urban toys in sculptural form. This was followed by itinerant installations in downtown Beirut from 1997-2000, during the upheaval of Solidere’s destruction of much of the ruins of Downtown and the intensive infrastructural works.

Then the attack of September 11, 2001 set in motion a chain of terror and fear in cities all over the world. In 2006, while Lebanon was under attack by Israel, I was printing under the bombs my book “Urban Toys”, a compilation of six different urban projects in five cities centering on the question ‘Can cities dream?’

“…There is lots of terror on earth, and there are lots of bombs in cities these days.

Cities, countries and the world are caught in a tide of nihilism whose protagonists believe that destruction is a solution. There should be a hundred times more creative effort to resist what is being negated. Cities need to dream. They were built up slowly on thousands of small dreams. Somewhere, cities should still dream. We should make them dream. In a world full of wonders and dangers, every moment is a magical survival.

We should make dream bombs in a world threatened with real bombs. Dream bombs are planned for years in advance, probably requiring as much energy, financial backing, organization and know-how as the terrorist kind. They might fail to happen, but when they do, their vitality permeates the city.”

I have selected two of my projects; those of Nara and Melbourne, and a new project in growth for Amman to give an idea of the process and thought behind the urban works.

Melbourne, Australia

‘The Travellers’ is a permanent urban art installation of ten 9m-high sculptures for the Sandridge Bridge, which I conceived in 2001 and was commissioned to realize in 2005 by the City of Melbourne and State of Victoria. Nine of the sculptures are a metaphorical re-creation of the major waves of migrants who travelled on the train from the port of Melbourne to the central Flinders Station for more than a century. Functioning as a kind of an urban clock, the sculptures travel across the bridge along rails and return three times a day, morning, noon and night. It takes 15 minutes for them to reach their places on the bridge, where they remain for an hour before returning. Gayip, the tenth sculpture, and which represents the indigenous aboriginal community, stands high on a nearby rock, watching the Travellers as they cross the Yarra River.

Nara, Japan

This project, a temporary installation in August 2004, took place in the grounds of the Todaiji Temple in Nara, site of the ancient capital of Japan. Over five hundred small sculptures and three giant ‘flowers’ were placed in Kagami Lake in homage to one of the founding monks of the temple, who according to legend, originated in the Middle East. I first presented the concept for this project to the Todaiji monks in 1984, when I was still a student doing my doctorate. After repeated presentations, I finally received approval for its realization twenty years later.

Amman, Jordan

The concept for a project-in-growth for Amman is called ‘The Dialogue of the Hills’. Amman encompasses a number of hills with distinct histories, characters and populations of varying socio-economic background. Their histories have built the city and what interested me was to create a story that could link them visually in a kind of cultural pilgrimage.

The Cloud of Dubai

The Cloud is a sustainable design initiative inspired by the city of Dubai. Standing at a height of approximately 300 meters, it is a landscape-in-the sky comprising a lake, gardens, rotating bridges, spiraling walkways and terraces, an auditorium and sky-sports platform. It stands on a myriad of slender, inclined columns designed to resemble rain. I have been working on the Cloud project with Arup Engineers in London for over two years to study the technological solutions and innovative materials that will be needed for its realization.

The Cloud is an ethereal horizontal antithesis to the rocketing of skyscrapers into Gulf skylines and a social antithesis to their elitism.

The Fisherman and the Cloud

‘The Fisherman and The Cloud’, a sculpture installation commissioned for Convergence, was part of a series of works based on a critical project for Dubai. The installation offered a panacea to the city’s numerous exclusive rooftop venues and an ode to the loss of human-scale.

The Fisherman is the Everyman. The landscape memory contained inside his body represented an accumulation of his past experiences, and the cloud above him, an abstraction of his thoughts. When the fisherman played with the Cloud, the movement created an amorphous shape, the blurred boundary illustrating the flexibility of mind and spirit. The Fisherman had five arms with which to fish. His catches were high-rise buildings, which represented human greed, technological achievement and our desire to reach the sky. With his three other arms, he played with the Cloud and the multitude of stories that it generated.

A Collaboration between APEAL-USA and The American University in Washington D.C.- April 2010