136 | Harpers BAZAAR ART | AUTUMN 2012

REVIEW
B
y its close on July 8th, the rst edition of the Beirut Art
Fair (previously known as the MENASA Art Fair) had
attracted some 22,500 visitors in a four-day event that
featured 43 galleries from around the world. Nearly all
the major Lebanese galleries were there, maintaining
market presence except of course for Sfeir-Semler
Gallery, the Hamburg/Beirut-based gallery, as ever in a
class of her own, boasting a presence at Art Basel, not to mention
representing all invited Lebanese artists at dOCUMENTA 13 (as well as
the Palestinian Khalil Rabah and the Egyptian Wael Shawky). Nearly a
week later, opening night at the Ashkal Alwan Open Studio would attract
prestigious artists such as Akram Zaatari, Rabih Mroueh, Emily Jacir,
Walid Sadek and Walid Raad, most of whom would most likely never set
foot at BAF (although Marwan Rechmaoui also represented by Andre
Sfeir-Semler was seen visiting the Fair on its last day, perhaps out of
curiosity).
Of the 27 top-notch galleries added to last years number, eight were
design galleries; not enough to make BAF an art and design fair, no doubt
thanks to the organisers logic that good design is just art. The same logic
was used for a comics exhibition curated by Pascal Odille (the Fairs art
director) on two sides of the outer wall of the VIP lounge, where a post-
2006 work by Zeina El Khalil portraying Hassan Nasrallah as a pop star
was forcibly taken down at one point, adding a twist to the exhibition next
door, This Is Not Wonderland (also conceived by Odille), that showcased,
among others, an installation by Anita Toutikian. Toutikan has been invited
regularly by Laure dHauteville (BAFs manager) from the rst Fair the
latter organised in Beirut, ARTUEL in 1998, which morphed into
ARTSUD, which dHauteville organised every year until 2005 and the
Hariri assassination.
LEBANON
BEIRUT
ART FAIR
Georges H Rabbath was one of the 22,500
guests of this years revamped Beirut Art
Fair (previewed in Harpers Bazaar Art
#3). He ponders whether this small Fair
really has what it takes to emerge as a
serious player on the Middle Eastern art
scene ...
Toutikians work was about her friend Mario Saba, who died last year,
and whom Toutikian recognised to be one of the rst installation artists in
Beirut. There was only the two of us, Toutikian insisted, as she sat across
from another historical reference: the Janine Rubeiz Gallery owned by
Rubeizs daughter Nadine Begdache. Begdache has done so much for art
in Lebanon , according to the visiting Christine Tohme.
Tohme, director of Ashkal Alwan and Home Workspace (and an
impressive #72 in the 2011 ArtReview Power List) was probably there to
see Catherine Davids curating of Marwan Kassab Bachis correspondence
with poet Abdulrahman Munif. Tohme found this to her liking, but no
ofcial comments could be taken about the rest of the Fair although she
might have liked Ali Cherris video (that had been exhibited at last years
Beirut Art Centres Exposure), had she been able to nd the Video Box.
One cannot earnestly relay Tohmes inner thoughts about whether a
gallery such as Janine Rubeiz should be present at the Fair; or even Saleh
Barakats Agial gallery for that matter (Barakat, incidentally, was helped in
his early shows by Begdache in 1995). Right next to Agial sat some newly-
popped art galleries from Lebanon and seven European galleries
representing artists from a redened MENASA region (Iran, Morocco,
Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan). There
was also ChinaToday Gallery from Brussels, working exclusively with
Chinese artists, as well as a much-feted Warhol (a portrait of 1970s
American starlet Barbara Molasky) from Galeria Cordeiros of Portugal.
As last year, David took part in the series of roundtable talks. A high
point was Yoyo Maeghts recollection of her memories of Mir and Calder.
Another was Marwan Kassab Bachi, speaking of his lifetime journey
through painting and of his memories of his late friend the novelist
Abdelrahman Munif. It was fascinating at least when he wasnt being
interrupted by Fawwaz Trabousli, or thrown off track by the late
announcement of the talk over the PA system. Seeing the venerable, if frail,
Bachi talking was rare and moving, and there was a rush of buyers
proffering his book for his signature afterwards. Another high point was
the roundtable about media and art, in which art-publishing professionals
all agreed that there was still no real art criticism in the MENASA region.
At the MENASAART fair last year, David argued for preserving spaces
for art production such as Ashkal Alwan, or the abutting Beirut Art
Centre, from growing market forces. It is obvious a divide is present,
judging from the members of the collectors committee, whose names
were mentioned at the beginning of the catalogue (apparently with no
other responsibility than to attend an exclusive preview), and the list of
supporters of the Beirut Art Centre, for example. Few intersections
between the lists could be found. Evidently (art) worlds are parting in
Beirut, and in the region, all the more to collide later on maybe, or at least
to mix. Whether such a thing is good or bad is anyones guess. HBA
My Pain Is
Real Ali Cherry
(2010, Courtesy
Galerie Imane
Fars-France)
The I Want to Live Again
installation, 2012, by Anita
Toutikian was showcased in
the This Is Not Wonderland
exhibition.