Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico (1944-2013) is considered one of the most important documentary photographers. For nearly forty years, he has looked at cities around the world and developed a reflection on landscape photography. The “Retours à Beyrouth”exhibition, which presents for the first time the four photographic missions carried out in 1991, 2003, 2008 and 2011, documents the progressive reconstruction of the city and bears witness to the photographer’s great affection for the Lebanese capital.
In 1991, the initiative of the Lebanese writer Dominique Eddé, led the Hariri Foundation to finance a documentary campaign on downtown Beirut, then almost destroyed after fifteen years of civil war. Participating, freely, were Gabriele Basilico, René Burri, Raymond Depardon, Fouad Elkoury, Robert Frank and Josef Koudelka. A landmark book and exhibition followed.
