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Soundscapes of Bahrain
Friday, June 21, 2013By Ari AkkermansWhat is contemporaneity? The question is of easy resolution for painters and the fine arts in general. A certain periodization, albeit erratic, exists in order to...
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Bodies without World
Sunday, August 4, 2013By Ari Akkermans[Shawki Yousef: Organic Corners, 2013, mixed media on canvas, 180x147cm]“The flesh is at the heart of the world.”–Maurice Merleau-PontyThe most astute metaphysical...
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Raw as in War
Monday, August 19, 2013By Ari Akkermans[Sandmoon at the Fete de la Musique, Beirut, 2013. Courtesy of Karim Sakr]There’s much hearsay about the Lebanese music scene, labeled both “underground” and...
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Istanbul, Beirut
Tuesday, August 20, 2013By Ari Akkermans[Mashrou3 Leila, Istanbul, 2013]It was the year 2009 in Beirut. That’s when Mashrou3 Leila, perhaps one of the most popular Lebanese bands, appeared in the...
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No Longer and Not Yet
Monday, August 26, 2013By Ari Akkermans[Ermitage VI, postcard, Gregory Buchakjian]It all begins with the syntax of an image: The knowledge that the moment can be repeated, altered and remembered; an...
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The Return of the Real
Monday, January 6, 2014By Ari AkkermansFor Rana Jabbour & Gregory Buchakjian[Hale Tenger, Beirut, video, 2005-2007]There was nothing particularly unsettling in the image. The windows of the...
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PEN 2014: Looking in the Mirror
Tuesday, April 29, 2014By Shaun RandolPaul Berman reads at PEN World Voices Festival's opening night as Salman Rushdie and Judith Butler look on (© Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center)[Read part one of...
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Damascus, Beirut
Wednesday, May 14, 2014By Ari Akkermans[Husain Tarabie]That painting was the first thing that captured my attention at the exhibition, right near the end of the L-shaped hall at Le Grey, one of the new...
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A Lament for the Independents in Lebanon
Tuesday, June 17, 2014By Margaret BenisonLebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam (center) casts his vote to elect the new Lebanese president in the parliament building in downtown Beirut on April 23,...
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Art Uninterrupted: Syria's Apex Generation
Thursday, August 28, 2014By Marina IordanDamascus, Syria has been part of the bourgeoning Middle Eastern art scene since the early 2000’s, when works by Syrian artists began to spread throughout...
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