Artists take a look at lost history and bright future in Beirut
Beirut's annual art and design fairs focus this year on past and future through the eyes of modern artists.
BEIRUT — This year's Beirut Art Fair and Design Fair (BAF/BDF) featured both emerging and established artists and designers from around the world, showcasing Lebanon's potential while exploring the unique history and future of the arts in the country.
The two fairs were held held in tandem at Beirut’s Seaside Arena Sept. 18-22.
The BAF hosted 54 galleries from 18 countries that collectively displayed some 1,350 artworks. The fair also included exhibitions, including “An Orientalist Voyage,” which highlighted selections from a private collection of some 300 artworks by European artists that portrayed Lebanon before the establishment of the modern state in 1943.
Philippe Jabre, a French Lebanese collector, and Gaby Daher started collecting the pieces 30 years ago, Daher, the curator of the exhibition, told Al-Monitor. “All the paintings were done in Europe. The artists would sketch [in Lebanon] and go home and paint the artworks for the European market,” he said.
