Created in 1895, the Venice Biennale is the most prestigious modern and contemporary art biennale in the world. It is a major meeting place for modern and contemporary art and with numerous national pavilions handled by well known curators, collateral events and prestigious prizes (Lion d’or), the Biennale is the place for international visibility and recognition of artists. It expresses the current artistic trends.
The first Lebanese pavilion in 2007 at the 52nd Biennale of Venice took place on the Giudecca island in an old brewery. “Panorama” was a collective exhibition of young but established Lebanese painters such as Fouad El Khoury, Lamia Joreige, Walid Sadek, Mounira El Solh and Akram Zaatari. The last participation of Lebanon at the Biennale was in 2013 presented by the artist Akram Zaatari with his installation “Letter to a refusing pilot”.
This year, in 2017, marks Lebanon’s return to Venice with a national pavilion at the Arsenale Nuovissimo. The Lebanese ministry of culture has assigned Zad Moultaka to present an artwork in this magnificent site. He has chosen to connect Europe to the East through underground worlds, making parietal art and geological creation coexist by uniting the Chauvet grotto and Jeita grotto, the latter Lebanese gem that moved him since his childhood.
The Biennale will bring higher visibility to the flourishing and much anticipated contemporary Lebanese Art scene, through Zad Moultaka’s sensitive and poetic multimedia installation that combines musical invention and visual research through an approach where technology takes inspiration from the archaic.
This artistic project is curated by the art historian and critic Emmanuel Daydé and led by a professional team that will bring excellence and vast knowledge of contemporary visual art. The project of the Lebanese Pavillion for the Venice Biennale is meant to be at the centre of this question of spatial, temporal and sound dialogue between Jeita and Chauvet, age–old, powerfully symbolic sites. It will take place in the historical civil and military shipyard of the Venetian fleet.
57th International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Venice, which will take place from May 13 to November 26, 2017.
