Sfeir-Semler Gallery⎢Beirut & Hamburg

On view: Etel Adnan, Rabih Mroué, Walid Raad, Marwan Rechmaoui & Akram Zaatari in ‘Intimate Garden Scene (in Beirut)' at Sursock Museum ()

The exhibition revisits forms of critical artmaking in Lebanon from the 1990s onward. The title is a reference to Ashkal Alwan's inaugural project, at Sanayeh Garden, Beirut (1995). The exhibition draws on lived experiences and acts of writing a subjective history and prompts us to consider what it means to tend to Lebanon's recent woes from the vantage point of everyday life.

Until November 15.

Opening this Saturday: Samia Halaby – Eye Witness at MSU Broad Art Museum ()

Samia Halaby: Eye Witness follows the artist’s (b. Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, 1936) creative journey to experiment with the ways painting conveys her experiences and reflects how she sees the world around her. Halaby’s paintings, which range from miniature to monumental, 2D to 3D, and monochrome to multicolor, are notably shaped by her experiences, and shift accordingly throughout her itinerant career across the Midwest, the East coast, and the Arab world. As a self-described painter of her time, Halaby also explores how technology can enhance and transform painting. Her experimentations thus render new approaches to capturing ephemeral moments. Halaby’s paintings reflect a life of witness, one we are invited to take part in by looking slowly and closely at the artist’s work.

June 29–December 15

(1) Samia Halaby, Between Time and Light, 2023, 149,5 x 446,5 cm, Exhibition view, Sfeir-Semler Gallery Hamburg, 2024

Award ceremony and opening next Sunday: Sung Tieu – Without Full Disclosure at MGKSiegen ()

Sung Tieu () will receive the 9th Rubens Prize Promotional Award from the City of Siegen on 30th June 2024.

The exhibition “Without Full Disclosure” brings together over 50 works, some of which are being shown in Germany for the first time. It provides an overview of artistic strategies and themes such as the influence of French colonisation on cultural standards in Vietnam and beyond, the use of psychological and acoustic weapons in military operations, and the development of energy infrastructures. The Siegen exhibition will also focus on new works that expand on her current study of the risks inherent in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the USA to include German research into shale gas extraction and potential sites for this already identified in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Photo: Vitali Gelwich ()

On view: '(ka) pheko ye–Wo der Traum beginnt', Dineo Seshee Raisibe Bopape's solo exhibition at Migros Museum Zurich ()

Bopape's work brings to light memories deeply rooted in nature, giving voice to untold stories. She invites viewers to engage all their senses – to smell, taste, hear, see, and feel, thereby crafting a non-linear narrative that challenges traditional storytelling methods.

Tue-Sun 11am-6pm
Thu 11am-8pm

Until September 8

Opening impressions of Tarik Kiswanson's solo show 'A Century' at Portikus Frankfurt ()

Until September 8.

Tuesday-Friday 12-19h
Saturday-Sunday 11-19h
Monday closed

Please join us today for the launch of

AREF EL RAYESS
An Artist from Lebanon (1928-2005)

The first comprehensive monograph on one of Lebanon's most important artists will be presented at the stand at Art Basel (Hall 2.0) at 5 pm.

Andrée Sfeir-Semler will give a short talk on the occasion.

ART BASEL 2024: Selection of works on view

Please join us tomorrow at Booth J18 (Hall 2.1) for the official opening.

(1) Tarik Kiswanson, Crossing, 2024, Copper, 127 x 27 x 21 cm
(2) Yto Barrada, Art Basel 2024, installation view
(3) Dineo Seshee Bopape, Lionesses, 2022, Bronze cast, metal munition box, lamb skin, bricks, 3 x 15 x 3 cm/20 x 35 x 16 cm
(4) Marwan Rechmaoui, Ice Cream, 2024, Grout, beeswax, oil paint, on aluminium, 54,6 × 28 × 4 cm each
(5) Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Loud Speakers (remix), 2024, Two videos on karaoke machines, color, sound, 96 x 43 x 33 cm each

Courtesy the artists and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/Hamburg

ART BASEL 2024: Selection of works on view

Please join us tomorrow at Booth J18 (Hall 2.1) for the official opening.

(1) Tarik Kiswanson, Crossing, 2024, Copper, 127 x 27 x 21 cm
(2) Yto Barrada, Art Basel 2024, installation view
(3) Dineo Seshee Bopape, Lionesses, 2022, Bronze cast, metal munition box, lamb skin, bricks, 3 x 15 x 3 cm/20 x 35 x 16 cm
(4) Marwan Rechmaoui, Ice Cream, 2024, Grout, beeswax, oil paint, on aluminium, 54,6 × 28 × 4 cm each
(5) Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Loud Speakers (remix), 2024, Two videos on karaoke machines, color, sound, 96 x 43 x 33 cm each

Courtesy the artists and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/Hamburg

ART BASEL 2024: Preview Day 1

Please join us tomorrow at Booth J18 (Hall 2.1) for the second day of the preview (by invitation only).

Opening tomorrow: Dineo Seshee Raisibe Bopape's solo show '(ka) pheko ye – Wo der Traum beginnt' at MIGROS Museum Zurich ()

In preparing for the exhibition, Bopape immersed herself in the world of dreams, forests, land, water and stories of African rainmakers. It has been a practice of various indigenous cultures globally to administer and receive healing through dreams, in this process engaging various plant life forms. Soil is one of the recurring matters in the exhibition, as a repository of the universe's memories and potential and as a record of social, historical and political stirrings; a symbol of our collective connection to the nurturing essence of the dreaming Earth.

Until September 8.

Opening today: Mounira Al Solh & Akram Zaatari in Art Explora's (.explora) Photo Pavilion 'Undertow' in Marseille.

Curated by Amanda Abi Khalil () and Danielle Makhoul, the exhibition is dedicated to photography and the moving image in the Arab world, and seeks to explore the Mediterranean in the context of migration and exile, highlighting the work of emerging photographers from the region.

The Art Explora Festival is an open-access traveling cultural festival, developed in collaboration with local institutions across the Mediterranean to offer unique cultural and artistic experiences to all audiences. The festival takes place on board the world's first museum ship, as well as on the quays and in the host cities. From spring 2024 to spring 2026, the festival will travel to over 15 countries in the Mediterranean.

In Marseille until June 18.

Please join us for the opening of Tarik Kiswanson's 'A Century' at Portikus Frankfurt () tomorrow.

June 8–September 8

Next Thu & Fr: Finissage of Mounira Al Solh's 'Pocket Rhythms' at ABN AMRO Art Space )

On the occasion of the eleventh ABN AMRO Art Award, the exhibition Pocket Rhythms with work by the current winner Mounira Al Solh () is on view in the ABN AMRO Art Space. Here, Al Solh draws her inspiration from popular Arabic music from the 70s and 80s – these omnipresent tunes in war-torn Lebanon would fill gaps between news bulletins, as continuous radio sounds rose in the air from shelter to shelter. Pocket Rhythms features recent paintings full of references to popular Arabic music which she interweaves with personal memories and political events.

Images: Mounira Al Solh, Pocket Rhythms, Exhibition views, ABN AMRO Art Space, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2023

Opening on June 7: Tarik Kiswanson's solo show 'A Century' at Kunsthalle Portikus ()

Delving into both biographical and collective history, in the exhibition 'A Century', Tarik Kiswanson unearths the complexities of historical events of the last hundred years of war, destruction and regeneration and how these resonate across generations and geographies. His practice spans media ranging from sculpture to drawing and film, and from sound and spatial interventions to poetry. Across various corpus, each work serves as a vessel that carries intricate narratives and transports traces of the past and the present.

Congratulations to Alia Farid () for being selected for Stanford Plinth Project

Stanford University Public Art Committee () announces major art installation by Farid to be unveiled on campus in the next academic year. Farid’s work, Amulets, is expected to be installed on Meyer Green’s plinth in the fall of 2024 and will remain on view for three years.

Commissioned for the Stanford Plinth Project, Amulets takes up materiality as a lexicon that exposes the inter-relationship of water and oil in Iraq. Farid asserts that materiality registers social history by rendering Amulets in the material signatures of water and oil and, in so doing, insists that a more progressive political understanding of Iraq begins with an unearthing of the traces of war, and its epistemologies, in terrestrial ecologies.

(1) Portrait: Alia Farid by Myriam Boulos, 2024
(2) In Lieu of What Is, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2022
(3) Palm Orchards, 2022, installation view, Whitney Biennial

On view: Sung Tieu in the group show 'Alltag und Epoche' at Exile ()

Entitled 'Alltag und Epoche' and invited by Oskar Schmidt, the exhibition at Exile's Erfurt gallery space features works by different generations of artists who either lived and worked in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or who deal with its heritage in their artistic practice.

Until June 22

(1) 'Alltag und Epoche', exhibition view, Exile, Erfurt, Germany, 2024
(2) Sung Tieu, Super, 2020, 14 x 10 x 10 cm

Opening next week: Yto Barrada's solo show 'Part-Time Abstractionist' at the International Center of Photography New York

In 'Part-Time Abstractionist', Barrada’s many decades of investigations into photography and abstraction will be explored, beginning in the early 2000s through the present. These two modes of working are consistent throughout Barrada’s work and offer an insight into the ways she examines the social, political, and industrial structures that have and continue to shape society.

Until September 2

Out in : Samia Halaby (), Mounira Al Solh & Wael Shawky at the Venice Biennale

© Photos:

Opening next week: "Genossin Sonne" at Kunsthalle Wien (), in which Walid Raad's "I only wish that I could weep." will be shown.

This essayistic group exhibition Genossin Sonne [Comrade Sun] is dedicated to works of art and artistic theories that connect the cosmos, and especially the sun – the most important provider of energy for life on earth – to social and political movements. In light of the decentering of the human being as the subject of history, we inquire into the extent to which not just the natural environment on our earth but, on a grander scale, even the universe contributes to historical processes.

From May 16–September 1

(1) Walid Raad/The Atlas Group, "I only wish that I could weep.", 1997, Film still

On view: Yto Barrada's large-scale installation "Le Grand Soir" at MoMAPS1.

Barrada’s first major outdoor work is composed of colorful concrete blocks stacked into pyramidal towers whose lower levels visitors can sit on and explore, providing an interactive experience in the courtyard.

Through 2026.

On view: Taysir Batniji's "Hannoun" at Jameel Arts Centre ()

Taysir Batniji’s site-specific performative installation "Hannoun" features a room that mirrors the size of the artist’s studio space in Gaza, a place that is now inaccessible. Batniji’s studio was completed in 2001; however, he left Gaza shortly after, returning each year until 2006 when border closures prevented further access. His studio has been abandoned ever since and was recently bombed by the Israeli occupation army during the ongoing genocide.

"Hannoun" was inspired by a childhood memory from 1972, in which Batniji avoided doing his schoolwork by sharpening pencils. The floor of the room is scattered with red pencil shavings, leading to a picture of Batniji’s studio at the end. The shavings, resembling a field of poppies, are a national symbol of Palestine, embodying the colours of the Palestinian flag and often associated with the memory of martyrs.

"Hannoun" can be seen as an intimate space of meditation and dreaming, while also creating an impassable threshold. This piece follows several performative projects by the artist, that evoke notions of memory, erasure, non-being, and destruction/construction or deconstruction/restitution.

Until August 18.

Congratulations to Samia Halaby (), who received a special mention by the jury of today.

The honor was accepted on her behalf by Andrée Sfeir-Semler, who thanked the jury, saying: “She has waited 87 years for recognition.” The artist, speaking over Zoom from New York, dedicated her award “to the youthful members of the press who have died in Gaza,” and thanked curator Adriano Pedrosa for bringing so many stateless artists to the fore during this exhibition.

To stage a simple, yet powerful gesture for Palestine, today at 4pm, Artists Against Apartheid are gathering at the ‚Giardini B’ vaporetto stop for an afternoon of readings.

Andrée Sfeir-Semler will be reading a passage of ‚To be in a time of war‘ by Etel Adnan.

Please join us at 4pm to take a stand in this important matter.

Tomorrow, 7:30pm at Anthology Film Archives, NYC:

Akram Zaatari's ‘All is well on the Border'

Focusing on the Israeli occupation of the South, Zaatari's work from 1997 is an early example of Zaatari’s explorations into postwar Lebanese memory culture through the collection of testimonies and documents.

The screening is part of 'BIDOUN PRESENTS' by curatorial platform and magazine Bidoun. $12 General Admission / $9 Seniors and Students
Tickets available at the box office or at the Anthology Film Archives website

The preview of La Biennale di Venezia is starting tomorrow and we are thrilled to celebrate our artists in Venice!

Multidisciplinary artist WAEL SHAWKY will represent Egypt with ‘Drama 1882‘, a filmed rendition of an original musical play directed, choreographed, and composed by himself and centering around Egypt’s nationalist Urabi revolution against imperial influence (1879-82).

Lawrence Abu Hamdan () photographed by Farah Al Qasimi () on the cover of GQ Middle East's April Issue.

From the Editor's Letter by :

'Lawrence Abu Hamdan is one of the most important young artists of our generation. The Amman-born, Turner Prize-winning sonic investigator, or self-described ‘private ear’ (get it?), bridges audio and politics to bring about substantial change. His work reveals hidden truths and unveils the cognitive effects of war and conflict, making powerful statements on human suffering. From Lebanon (AirPressure.info, 2022) and Palestine (Earshot, 2016) to Syria (Saydnaya, 2017), his most well-known and groundbreaking works are deeply regional and therefore, for us, deeply personal. Abu Hamdan emerges as an oracle to our overly dominant visual culture, giving a voice to sounds we’ve ignored.'

Head over to to read more.

Open until August 24: "SAMIA HALABY: Fragments of time – paintings & digital works"

Samia Halaby () is a Palestinian-American artist and scholar living in the USA since 1952 and currently working in New York.
From the 1960s on, she uses bright colours for her works on canvas. Her compositions are constructed, serial or minimal – always within the Zeitgeist of her time.
In the mid-1980s, Halaby discovers the amiga computer as a new tool of expression. She teaches herself coding and starts to program kinetic paintings in 1986. These experimentations with computer-generated visuals naturally evolve into the Kinetic Painting Program, through which she transforms the keyboard of her PC into a live digital painting instrument.

Find out more via the link in our bio.

(1-3) Exhibition views: Edward Greiner ()

Opening this Thursday: ‘SAMIA HALABY: Fragments of time‘

The gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of Halaby's recent work on canvas and paper, as well as her groundbreaking experiments in the digital realm from the 1980s.

Join us at 8 pm for a walkthrough of the show by the artist.

One more week to see YTO BARRADA and DINEO SESHEE BOPAPE in "The Struggle of Memory"

"Societies require continuity and connection with the past to preserve social unity and cohesion and people need to know where they come from to be able to adjust to the circumstances of the present and challenges of the future. One of the most insidious consequences of the slave trade and European colonialism in Africa was the devaluing and dismantling of precolonial histories and cultures. The African artifacts in Western museums are symbols of the cultures that were robbed of their people and material heritage, ruthlessly subjugated, or gradually hollowed out and disassembled."

(1) Yto Barrada, Belvedere 1, 2001 (on view in the exhibition)

(2) Dineo Sehsee Bopape, Lerole: footnotes (The struggle of memory against forgetting), 2017, Installation view

On view until May 18: ALIA FARID () at Passerelle Brest ()

"Elsewhere" is a new commission and the first institutional solo exhibition in the UK by Alia Farid. Working in film, sculpture, and textile, Farid traces histories often marginalised or obscured by the Global North. In her artworks, communities, local practices, and traditions are reconsidered, giving the rhythms of everyday life political significance and potency.

Sixteen hand-woven and embroidered rugs are installed in the ground floor of Passerelle. Drawing from photographs, archival material, and interviews with local people, the works detail cityscapes – buildings, shop fronts, and adverts – that conjure the presence of the Palestinian diaspora in Puerto Rico (USA). Pharmacies and restaurants, owned and operated by Palestinians, are woven alongside brightly coloured mosques and a menu detailing ‘Arabic cuisine’.

(1) Alia Farid, exhibition view "Elsewhere", 2024, Passerelle, Brest. © Aurélien Mole
(2) Alia Farid, exhibition view "Elsewhere", 2024, Passerelle, Brest, © Aurélien Mole
(3) Alia Farid, exhibition view "Elsewhere", 2024, Passerelle, Brest, © Aurélien Mole