Abdel-Hamid Baalbaki
Essay by Gregory Buchakjian
in Abdel-Hamid Baalbaki
monograph
Published by Saleh Barakat
Gallery, Beirut, 2017
Bilingual: English/Arabic
ISBN 978-9953-0-4254-1
Abdel-Hamid Baalbaki
Texte de Grégory Buchakjian
in Abdel-Hamid
Baalbaki
Ouvrage monographique publié par
la Saleh Barakat Gallery,
Beyrouth, 2017
Bilingue:
Anglais / Arabe
ISBN 978-9953-0-4254-1
[Excerpt]
In
2009, Saleh Barakat
curated an art exhibition
titled, The Road to
Peace, at the then
newly opened Beirut Art
Center. Barakat, founder
of Agial Art Gallery,
wanted to showcase the
Lebanese civil war through
the eyes of artists who
had experienced it. His
intention was to dispel
the notion that doubted
the existence of an
artistic scene during the
15 years of the conflict,
and maintained that the
few artists, who were
active at the time, had
turned their eyes away
from the disaster to paint
either abstractions or
bucolic landscapes
consisting of traditional
houses. Barakat wanted
also to establish a
dialogue between that
generation of artists,
often called “the modern”
generation, and that of
younger ones, known as
“the contemporary,” or
“post-conceptual”
generation, whose work
began to emerge in the
1990s. Lamia Joreige, one
of the co-founders of
Beirut Art Center, and
Walid Sadek, author of a
critical essay that
introduced the
exhibition’s catalogue,
both belonged to that
latter generation. The
Road to Peace featured a
group of painters and
sculptors, in addition to
one photographer, Fouad
Elkoury. The list included
names such as Rafic
Charaf, Paul Guiragossian
and Aref Rayess, all of
whom had been known for
their political
affiliations. The
centerpiece of the show,
however, was perhaps the
large-scale composition,
created by Abdel-Hamid
Baalbaki, that turned an
unflinching eye on the
devastation caused by the
war. Painted in 1977,
Baalbaki’s composition
became an iconic
representation of those
tormented times, to the
extent that people began
referring to it as ‘the
Lebanese Guernica’.
Titled War,
the painting came to be
known as Abdel-Hamid
Baalbaki’s most
influential work,
overshadowing his entire
oeuvre, perhaps the same
way The Raft of the
Medusa appeared to
exemplify Theodore
Gericault’s legacy. This
monumental artwork and
its re-emergence within
public sphere shed light
on a rather untypical
figure in the story of
Lebanese art. Baalbaki,
who practiced painting
alongside sculpture,
writing and poetry,
sought to address masses
through large-scale
murals depicting epic
historical subjects.
Aside from War,
Baalbaki produced Ashura,
The Fall of Al-Nassar
and Al-Hattab.
Painted in Paris in the
early 1970s, The
Fall of Al-Nassar
was deemed too large to
be transported, and
accordingly it was kept
in the French capital,
where its fate is still
unknown. Ashura,
Baalbaki’s thesis
project at the Lebanese
University, was
displayed inside the
National Institute of
Fine Arts until the
building was looted
during the war. Hence
Baalbaki’s oeuvre was
marked by two
considerable losses.
