BEIRUT GALLERY WEATHERS WAR (Artnet)

One of the many causalities of the current conflict in Lebanon may be Beirut’s budding art scene, if the experience of Beruit’s branch of the Hamburg Galerie Sfeir-Semler is any indication.
The Lebanon-born German art dealer Andrée Sfeir, who opened her first gallery in Germany more than 20 years ago, launched a branch in an abandoned iron factory in Beirut’s Quarantine district in April 2005. The initiative coincided with Lebanon’s "Cedar Revolution," and the awakening of Lebanese civil society following the departure of Syrian troops -- the gallery opened on the same weekend (Apr. 9-10, 2006) that the last of the Syrian forces officially departed Lebanon.
Sfeir told Artnet News that the Beirut gallery was not, at first, a commercial endeavour. Flowing from the optimism of the Cedar Revolution, Galerie Sfeir-Semler in Beirut was designed to promote local artists and help build the Lebanese art market -- Beirut has been, of course, an important business and cultural center in the Middle East -- as well as to bring prominent international artists to Lebanon to stimulate dialogue.
"I didn’t know if it would function," Sfeir said. "I believed in Lebanon, and I wanted to do something in the country. We had finally recovered from the last war. Life was beautiful and it truly felt like we were living in a young democracy, and that things were happening. There was an opening."
The gallery met with considerable success, on esthetic, social and commercial levels. According to Sfeir, the positive results had everything to do with the return of exiled Lebanese who had been living abroad and other cosmopolitan Arabs who were hungry for culture.
"We were even selling video installations," the dealer said. "Can you imagine?" The Lebanese Bank Audi purchased a video work by Lebanon-born artist Akram Zaatari (who trained at the New School in New York), which is to be installed in their lobby.
On July 6, 2006 -- six days before the Israeli air force began the bombing of Beirut -- the gallery debuted "Moving Home(s)," its most ambitious show to date, originally scheduled July 6-Nov. 22, 2006. Upwards of 700 people attended the opening.
The show features work by Atelier van Lieshout, Balthasar Burkhard, Diller + Scofidio, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Jimmi Durham, Dan Graham, Bernard Khoury, Stephan Mörsch, Peter Piller and Rayyane Tabet. It was intended to bring together works that touched on themes of globalization and tourism -- but now its title has taken on a new meaning, given the mass exodus from Lebanon, with over 600,000 people already fleeing their homes, according to the United Nations.
Sfeir herself left Beirut earlier this month after waking up to bombing and seeing the city covered in soot from the air strikes. She hired a taxi to escape along the mountain road to Damascus. "There were hundreds of people with suitcases waiting to get across the border," she says. "Fortunately, my taxi driver knew somebody, and I was able to cross." Her husband, who keeps plane tickets on reserve for business purposes, was able to secure space on a flight to Germany.
Sfeir-Semler’s gallery director, Natalie Khouri, who has family in Beirut, has remained in Lebanon and has been keeping an eye on the gallery. Sfeir hopes that the space will remain safe, given its location in a sturdy building in a neighborhood devoted mainly to warehouses.
At present, the art in "Moving Home(s)" remains as installed. "How would we get it out?" Sfeir mused. "The airports, the ports, all these things have been bombed." She has been in contact with the artists in the show, and said that they have all been supportive.
Sfeir predicts that Galerie Sfeir-Semler will open again. "I am not closing the gallery. We are waiting," she says. "I did not open the gallery to make a profit," she adds. "I opened it to give the people a cultural space to exchange ideas -- to get other ideas besides war and destruction."