Fouad Elkoury (b. 1952) began his career during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). For Photomed, the photographer revisited to this period in his professional and personal life. “Compiling, as everyone knows, is what retired people do,” he writes in the introduction to his exhibition at the SV Gallery in central Beirut. “So I chose the photographs at random with the help of a few friends.”
The effects of the war on the city and its people can be seen in the photographs, some of which are deeply rooted in the minds of its citizens. Fouad Elkoury documented the civil war, mostly in black-and-white: checkpoints between the divided east and west, picnics, two women sunbathing in the summer of 1984 in the Portemilio district of Beirut, making one almost forget the ongoing conflict.
After this period, Fouad Elkoury continued taking pictures but began exploring a more surreal aesthetic somewhere between dream and reality. He is the author of dozens of books most of them related to photography, more recently Be…longing the tales of forty years in photography, he took part in the creation of the Fondation Arabe Pour l’Image (Arab Foundation for the Image) in Beirut in 1997. Today he is one of the country’s most renowned photographers, and his work continues to be exhibited in Paris, Dubai and Beirut.
FESTIVAL
Photomed
January 17 – February 16, 2014
Beirut
Lebanon
http://www.festivalphotomed.com/index.php/lib/Photomed
