Presentation
Within the small but lively art scene in Lebanon, different art practices, aesthetic tendencies, and visual researches raise complex issues and challenges. Meetings are one of the dynamics through which these concerns are shared, questioned, and developed. What happens when people meet to discuss art? How do these exchanges affect their practices and positioning? And, underlying these questions: What kind of art are we doing?
Art Meetings – Beirut emerged from regular encounters initiated by Ricardo Mbarkho around 1997 with friends and colleagues. Meeting after meeting, these exchanges developed into an events-based network, a discussion-based community, and a friend-based interaction. The meetings were an opportunity to reflect on art while taking part in the evolution of the scene in which it operates.
Several members of the original group later pursued art education abroad, in countries including Canada, Estonia, France, Italy, Slovakia, and the United States. Many subsequently returned to live and work in Lebanon. Since 1997, times, places, and people have changed. In 2015, the face-to-face initiatives were reactivated, bringing together members of old friends and others, such as artists, technicians, journalists, critics, art agents, theorists, teachers, historians, academics, and researchers.
Taking place in Beirut and its surroundings, these meetings developed through the querying of the people who meet. Their concerns circulate between artistic practice, education, research, and the conditions through which art is produced, discussed, and recognized. The Internet extends these exchanges, allowing participants elsewhere to join the discussion and opening locally raised questions to other art-related contexts.
Examples of these meetings include:
- July 2, 2016In the frame of the Biennale de Paris at Beirut: an encounter on the occasion of Tabbouleh Day.
- June 12, 2015With Fred Forest: a meeting via Skype concerning his exhibition at the Centre Pompidou.
- May 15, 2015With Alexandre Gurita: The discussion addressed invisual art and its teaching at the Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques (Iheap), in relation to its activities in Paris and New York.
- April 27, 2015With Franck Ancel: an encounter around Polieri.
Through these encounters, Art Meetings – Beirut continues to take shape through friendship, discussion, and participation. Each meeting reopens the question from which the exchanges began: What kind of art are we doing?