Beirut Art Fair 2016: announcement of the selection committee

The Beirut Art Fair is pleased to announce the final composition of the selection committee for its 7th edition, which will take place in Beirut from 15 to 18 September 2016.

The committee will include major figures from the art world, including three collectors and two leading international curators—all with strong ties to the ME.NA.SA (Middle East - North Africa - South Asia) region.

The committee members are internationally renowned for the quality and importance of their collections and careers, which reflect a common desire to look beyond the strictly Western framework in order to develop and transmit broader visions of contemporary creation.

Their personal commitment, their familiarity with the various networks of the Levant, and their vast artistic expertise make the committee members a perfect fit for the 2016 Beirut Art Fair, which will bring to light the ME.NA.SA region’s best young talents in its new Revealing section, while offering a context for understanding the history of a different modernity with its exhibition Lebanon Modern! — all this in addition to an exciting program of encounters with major Lebanese collections and institutions.

2016 Beirut Art Fair - Selection Committee:

Basel Dalloul
 

Based in Cairo, Basel Dalloul is the Chairman and CEO of Noor Group, a leader in the field of information technology that provides internet, telephone and video services to over 135 countries across the globe.

Dalloul is a recognized authority in IT and was among the initiators of a revolutionary approach to internet services in the Egyptian market.

Today, Dalloul remains committed to bringing expanded internet services to underserved areas around the world, specifically in Africa and the Middle East, in an effort to realize these regions’ vast potential.

The Ramzi and Basel Dalloul collection is dedicated to Middle Eastern and North African art. It currently stands at over 3500 pieces.

Hou Hanru
 

Art critic and curator Hou Hanru has served as artistic director of the MAXXI in Rome since 2013. The Chinese national was previously Director of Exhibitions and Public Program and Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Hanru has also curated many international events, including the Shanghai Biennale (2000), the Gwangju Biennale (2002), the Nuit Blanche in Paris (2004), the Tirana Biennale (2005), the 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007), and the Venice Biennale, at which he was the commissioner of the French Pavilion in 1999 and the Chinese Pavilion in 2007.

Abraham Karabajakian
 

Born in 1971, Abraham Karabajakian founded Loyalty Investments & Insurance in Lebanon in 1997 and Loyalty Insurance Brokers in Romania in 2006. He is the managing partner of both firms.

An art collector since his early 20s, in 2010 Karabajakian co-organized and curated the exhibition Pieces for a Museum to raise awareness of the need to create a modern and contemporary art museum in Beirut.

In 2012 Karabajakian and his business partner Roger Akoury opened KA Modern and Contemporary Art, a private art collection in Beirut that includes more than 600 works by major modern artists from Lebanon and beyond.

Karabajakian is a Board Member of APEAL—the Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of Arts in Lebanon "—and vice president of the Mare Foundation, Museum of Recent Art Bucharest.

Jean-Hubert Martin
 

French art historian Jean-Hubert Martin is internationally renowned for his interest in non-Western cultures, which has led him to design open-plan exhibitions, juxtaposing heterogenous works that promote new ways of looking at the world. These include Paris - Berlin (1978), Paris - Moscow (1979), and Magicians of the Earth (1989) at the Centre Pompidou, and Carambolages, currently at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Tarek Nahas
 

Tarek Nahas is a business lawyer and seasoned aesthete who happily abandons his duties to his passion: photography.

A collector since 2000, Nahas loves to share his passion with a wider audience, as evidenced in the 2015 exhibition Open Rhapsody, a Journey into Photography and Video Collections at the Beirut Exhibition Center, which he co-curated with Jean-Luc Monterosso (Director of the House of Photography in Paris).

THE BEIRUT ART FAIR

The Beirut Art Fair was created in 2010 and is directed by Laure d’Hauteville, an exhibition curator and former journalist.

The Beirut Art Fair’s Artistic Director is Pascal Odille, an expert in modern and contemporary art (member C.N.E.S.). Marine Bougaran directs the fair’s "Projects" spaces.

Laure d’Hauteville and Pascal Odille both enjoy a wealth of personal experience and specialized knowledge with respect to the diverse actors and the art scenes of the ME.NE.SA region.

Dynamic and open to the world, the resurgent Lebanese capital is the perfect setting for this unique and original fair that privileges discovery, proximity and exchanges among diverse actors.

Strengthening its role as the leading showcase for the vibrant art scene of the Levant and the ME.NA.SA region, the 7th edition of the Beirut Art Fair will include:

A 30% increase in exhibition space compared to 2015, allowing an even larger and more international selection of galleries.

A reconfigured selection committee composed of renowned international art collectors and experts.

A new space - Revealing - dedicated to the discovery of the ME.NA.SA region’s most promising young artists. Each selected gallery will showcase an artist of especially promising talent, offering privileged access for collectors and fairgoers and favoring the creation of professional contacts among the various actors present at the fair.

An exhibition - Lebanon Modern! - that will provide the context and vocabulary necessary to a historical understanding of modernism in the Middle East between 1945 and 1970. It will present an in-depth look at the artists who defined these pivotal decades, much of whose history remains yet to be uncovered and written.

A series of conferences and presentations in Beirut and in Paris that will develop and contextualize the fair’s themes.

A personalized VIP program offering unique opportunities to discover new places (foundations, museums, etc.), along with some of the most exclusive private collections in the Lebanese capital.

In 2015, the Beirut Art Fair welcomed 21,000 visitors. 52 galleries from 19 countries presented more than 1,500 works by 300 artists. The total revenues of the fair amounted to $3.2 million—twice those of the 2011 edition.