Curated by Amin Alsaden
Rose and Shaheen Saleeby Museum, American University of Beirut, April 8 – July 15, 2025.
This exhibition presents artists whose practices have drawn on the Arabic language, or the calligraphic possibilities of the letter more specifically. A speculative survey that sheds light on a barely examined yet important tendency, it elucidates the impressive breadth of Beirut's discursive experiments, which challenged Western hegemony during the second half of the twentieth century. Many of the works are being grouped together and shown publicly for the first time.
From calligraphic abstraction to forays into poetry, from legible inscriptions to surrealistic tableaux, and from ruminations on tradition to cravings for novelty, the artists' inquiries range widely, as they interrogate the semantic, formal, and symbolic dimensions of the script. These works of Lebanese modernism constitute the historical backdrop to a new wave of interest in Arabic; contemporary lettering artists, graphic designers, and typographers have all gravitated toward the language's arresting appeal, joining generations that have been rediscovering, and reconnecting with, their mother tongue.
Theirs is a visceral hymn, chants haunted by the Nahda* years, when Arabic helped fashion a rebellious avant-garde subjectivity. But this collective impulse remains largely overlooked, like anxious enunciations that once erupted with full force, only to be repressed. Emblematic of a city with a complex sense of identity, it connects Beirut with the Arab world, and with a language that insists on making itself not just audible, but visible, too.
* The exhibition's title is borrowed from a text by May Ziadeh, “The Evolution of the Arabic Language," 1930.
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The exhibition features works by: Adel El Saghir, Adnan Charara, Adnan El Masri, Aref El Rayess, Etel Adnan, Helen Khal, Huguette Caland, Hussein Madi, Joseph El Helou, Juliana Seraphim, Laure Ghorayeb, Layla Habr, Mahmoud Amhaz, Michel Akl, Mohammad Ghaleb, Mona Saudi, Mounir Najem, Moussa Tiba, Nabil Nahas, Paul Guiragossian, Rafic Charaf, Said Akl, Saliba Douaihy, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Sami Makarem, Samir Sayegh, Shafic Abboud, Stelio Scamanga, and Wajih Nahlé
With thanks to the lenders: American University of Beirut (AUB) Art Collection; Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA); Saleh Barakat Gallery; Saradar Collection; and several private collections (Abboudi Abou Jaoude, Anachar and Elma Basbous, Estate of Hussein Madi, Imad Abou Rizk, Studio of Layla Habr, Mohamed Ali Osseiran, Paul Guiragossian Foundation, Sami Makarem Cultural Foundation).