Beirut contemporary art fair gets set for new edition
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
The Beirut Art Fair will be held at the Beirut International Exhibition Leisure Center with the participation of 40 galleries.
The Beirut Art Fair will be held at the Beirut International Exhibition Leisure Center with the participation of 40 galleries.Beirut Art Fair will run from July 5 to 8 with 40 galleries at an exhibition center in the Lebanese capital, according to organizers.
Organized by Laure d’Hauteville, Pascal Odille and Jean-Marc Decrop, the fair is dedicated to modern and contemporary artists from the region the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia (ME.NA.SA.) region.
The fair will also feature street art, VJing, comic strips, videos, sculptures and installations.
The event also includes a series of lectures that are being organized to reaffirm the role of Beirut as the cultural capital for the Arab world, Iran and Turkey. The participating galleries of the two last editions of the fair allowed collectors, international professionals, and amateurs to discover the artistic wealth of an emerging market that has not stopped growing over the last three years.
Beirut, which is a historic crossing point between civilizations, remains a privileged destination for cultural lovers.
“Located in the heart of the Fertile Crescent, the Beirut Art Fair reflects the dynamism and diversity of ME.NA.SA.,” d’Hauteville said. “The fair is in tune with the times, present and future, to reveal and highlight the emerging trends. It is an authentic showcase of a continent that has made its mark in the history of art.”
This year, the fair is presenting for the first time an exhibition dedicated to ME.NA.SA. comics with 30 original drawings. Through the “ninth art,” the Comics Corner offers an overview of the art running from the Maghreb to Asia via the Middle East, and shows how comic creators capture the political, social and economic situations of their native countries.
The corner includes Zeina Abirached, Mazen Kerbaj, and Jorj Mhaya from Lebanon; Nadia Khiari from Tunisia and Mohamed El Sharkawi from Egypt. The video section of the event will also draw Lebanon’s Ali Cherri, Algeria’s Halida Boughriet and China’s Qiu Zhijie.
The event will be held at the Beirut International Exhibition Leisure Center.
