Recognized creators, or seldom shown in France, photographers brought together in the IMA exhibition participate of an artistic effervescence that is reflected in the Lebanon of today. Most are Lebanese, although some have decided to move away, while continuing to develop projects that affect the destiny of their country. Their work crosses those of “foreigners” who have given of Lebanon a vision marked by the imprint of their own culture. This diversity of motifs and approaches, this dialogue of sensibilities enriches all the photographs gathered today most of which were made during the last decade. They were divided into two sequences echoing two visions of this region of the world, which inspired the title of the exhibition. The first, with a documentary resonance, is in touch with the geographical, urban and social reality: the disorder of the landscape, the mixture of communities, the refugees, the exile, the condition of women, the history … The years of civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990) profoundly affected artists and some of their works more or less explicitly restore the memory. The second sequence, freeing itself from the constraints of realism, brings together artists who lead us to other horizons, dreamed or reinvented, expressing the quest for an elsewhere, the desire to escape, the recourse to poetry: these works approach fiction, cultivate the imagination and develop forms such as photomontage or digital collage. The exhibition is framed by two references to the civil war: on the one hand, a film by Tanino Musso on several photographers – including Gabriele Basilico – documenting the ruins of Beirut in 1991, and on the other hand a creation of Zad Moultaka – video and music – inspired by the sound, atmosphere and landscapes that inhabited his adolescence during the conflict.
Gabriel Bauret
INSTITUT DU MONDE ARABE
1, rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard,
Place Mohammed V, 75005 Paris
