With the support of the Alexis and Anne-Marie Habib Foundation, the Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum will present the exhibition “ La Fabrique des illusions : Collection Fouad Debbas et commentaires contemporains” until May 12, 2019.
Photography, especially “orientalist” photography, has always worked in the mode of simulation. In the nineteenth century, photography and theater installed other modes of representation. These times invented the ocular spectacle, a scenographic complex with special effects, conglomerate new images. The mechanical image pretends to replace the verb.
By confronting Fouad Debbas’s “oriental” collection with contemporary comments, La Fabrique des illusions sketches the picture of another history of contradictory and, in the end, illegitimate photography.
This exhibition brings together images from the Fouad Debbas Collection as well as works by ten contemporary international artists: Mac Adams, Nadim Asfar, Vartan Avakian, Elina Brotherus, Daniele Genadry, Randa Mirza, Louis Quail, Angélique Stehli, Wiktoria Wojciechowska, and Ali Zanjani.
The exhibition will be taken over by the Mucem (Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean) from 18 July to 29 September 2019.
Curators : François Cheval and Yasmine Chemali
For more information: https://sursock.museum/
Information
Musée Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock
Greek Orthodox Archbishopric Street, 20715509 Ashrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon
February 22, 2019 to May 12, 2019
