Beirut and the Golden Sixties revisits a turbulent chapter in the development of modernism in Beirut beginning with the 1958 Lebanon crisis and ending with the 1975 outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. Through 230 works by 34 artists and more than 300 archival documents, the exhibition examines this romanticised era of global influence in Beirut to highlight how collisions between art, culture and polarised political ideologies turned the Beirut art scene into a microcosm for larger trans-regional tensions. As a city that is arguably in and of itself a manifesto of fragility, Beirut continues to evoke both vulnerability and determination – or at least traces of it – and conjure forms of resistance, called forth by the urgency of the moment and the desire to be remembered. Artists: Shafic Abboud, Yvette Achkar, Etel Adnan, Farid Aouad, Dia al-Azzawi, Alfred Basbous, Joseph Basbous, Michel Basbous, Assadour Bezdikian, Huguette Caland, Rafic Charaf, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Georges Doche, Simone Fattal, Laure Ghorayeb, Paul Guiragossian, Farid Haddad, John Hadidian, Jumana Bayazid El-Hussein, Dorothy Salhab Kazemi, Helen El-Khal, Jean Khalifé, Simone Baltaxé Martayan, Ibrahim Marzouk, Jamil Molaeb, Fateh al-Moudarres, Nicolas A. Moufarrege, Mehdi Moutashar, Aref El Rayess, Mahmoud Said, Adel al-Saghir, Hashim Samarchi, Nadia Saikali, Mona Saudi, Juliana Seraphim, Cici Sursock, Khalil Zgaib, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige

A World of Endless Promise assembles a host of creative practices by 88 artists from 39 countries that are spread across 12 locations spanning several centuries of Lyon’s rich history. Whether through the issues they tackle, or the materials they use, these artists’ diverse approaches represent varied understandings of our current state of global uncertainty and has the potential to inform our thinking about generative paths of resistance. In recognising that artists, past and present, are often among the most vulnerable voices in our societies, the exhibition also brings together works of art and objects spanning millennia that bare their scars and deformities, share forgotten accounts of turmoil, and draw attention to the indelible traces of time. And it is exactly there, at the heart of their fragility, that the promise of a truly changed world begins.

Passage is a site-specific, two-channel video installation, which expands Nujoom Alghanem's experimentation with contemporary Arabic poetry through the language of film. Taking her quintessential 2009 poem, The Passerby Collects the Moonlight, as a point of departure, this installation explores the universal experience of displacement. This Brechtian conflation of reality and fiction, culminating in a scene that depicts Falak arriving at the pavilion in Venice, prompts the viewers to consider the parallelism between the film's three protagonists: the director, the actress and the fictional character. These three women of a similar age share the experience of similar dualities: the hidden and the revealed, fragility and power, belonging and displacement. The experience of passage and duality also permeates the design of the exhibition space, where visitors can enter and exit from either side of the pavilion. A large screen, diagonally positioned at the centre, divides the space into two symmetrical halves. The viewers are invited to engage both with Nujoom and Amal's real process of creating the film and with the cinematographic portrayal of the fictional character of Falak.

The publication The Architecture of Deception / Confinement / Transformation accompanies the eponymously titled exhibition trilogy at BNKR - current reflections on art and architecture in Munich and showcases 18 diverse artistic standpoints at the intersection of art and architecture. Each chapter directly corresponds to the evolving history of the exhibition space, which was originally constructed as a camouflaged air-raid bunker during the Second World War, then used as a postwar internment camp, and finally transformed into its current state as a mixed-use residential and office building. The Architecture of Deception explores notions of illusion and deception, the creation of new realities, truth versus fiction; Confinement explores notions of shelters and safety, captivity and freedom, 'outside' versus 'inside'; Transformation explores notions of gentrification, decay and definition of living spaces. With contributions by the editors, David Adjaye and Nikolaus Hirsch, Isabelle Doucet, and Madeleine Freund. Artists: The Architecture of Deception: Hans Op de Beeck, Emmanuelle Laine, Bettina Pousttchi, Gregor Sailer, Cortis & Sonderegger, The Swan Collective; The Architecture of Confinement: Ramzi Ben Sliman, Mona Hatoum, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Annika Kahrs, OEzgur Kar, Joanna Piotrovska; The Architecture of Transformation: Dana Awartani, Olivier Goethals, Eva Nielsen, Jeremy Shaw, Hannah Weinberger, Andrea Zittel.

In Collapsed Time, Christina Quarles (Chicago, 1985) shows an installation that occupies the entire exhibition space and exhibits her paintings alongside works from the Nationalgalerie collection. Quarles confronts several decades of diverse forms of artistic practices, from photography and sculpture to video and performance, that have dealt with notions of physical and psychological confinement, and their impact on the representation of the human body. The formal language of Quarles’ paintings explores the experience of living in a racialised, queer body. Her figures contend with the boundaries of identity, as they intervene with complex patterns and planes. The catalogue features a curatorial essay by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, an extended interview with Christina Quarles and a contribution by Jillian Hernandez, Associate Professor at the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, University of Florida, USA. Text in English and German.

A selection of fifteen well-established artists from across the Maghreb, Levant, and Gulf in conversations moderated by experts on contemporary Middle Eastern art. Historically, artists have been known for their ability to understand emerging trends of thought and emotions before they become clear to the society at large. Yet, outside the art world, artists have rarely enjoyed opportunity to share their ideas. As revolutionary movements challenge decades of authoritarian rule across Arab countries, Conversations with Contemporary Arab Artists is the first book to give voice to artists from across the region and makes their thoughts accessible to a wide audience. Its purpose is to record for future generations these artists' thoughts as they bear witness to revolutionary currents sparking deep transformations in their political and social landscapes. Rather than providing a comprehensive analysis of the "Arab Spring," this book simply aims to provide readers with snap shots of the states of mind of intellectually engaged Arab artists. It is aimed at curators, art historians, artists, sociologists, political scientists, citizens of the Arab world and students of art, art history, and the Middle East.

The Many Lives and Deaths of Louise Brunet brings together several hundred works of art, objects and archival documents, covering diverse geographies over several millennia. From Cranach to 1960s industrial design, and ancient funerary stele to 18th century Japanese Samurai armour, the exhibition draws on the collections of local and foreign institutions. It exhumes trans-historical narratives of fragility and resistance and confronts them with a diversity of works by the biennale's invited artists. Departing from the context of Lyon, the exhibition is designed as a retelling of the obscure 19th century story of Louise Brunet, a silk spinner from the Drome, who after joining the revolution of the "Canuts" (silk weavers) in 1834, embarked on an arduous journey of self-reinvention, which ended in the Lyon-owned silk factories of Mount Lebanon. Louise Brunet is portrayed as an elusive figure, part real, part fictional, that appears in different guises, in various places, at several moments in history.

The thematic exhibition Walking Through Walls presents a contemporary panorama of the artistic responses made to the detrimental effects of human-made barriers, divisions and walls, showcasing works by Jose Davila, Mona Hatoum, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Christian Odzuck, Anri Sala, Regina Silveira, alongside many others. Acknowledging the location of the Gropius Bau alongside the former Berlin Wall, the exhibition offers a global perspective on the physical and psychological repercussions of coexisting in divided societies. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, the exhibition is a timely exploration of how barriers can articulate feelings of vulnerability and anxiety, and represent individual and collective identities. Artists: Jose Davila, Mona Hatoum, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Christian Odzuck, Anri Sala, Regina Silveira and others.

Passage is a site-specific, two-channel video installation, which expands Nujoom Alghanem's experimentation with contemporary Arabic poetry through the language of film. Taking her quintessential 2009 poem, The Passerby Collects the Moonlight, as a point of departure, this installation explores the universal experience of displacement. This Brechtian conflation of reality and fiction, culminating in a scene that depicts Falak arriving at the pavilion in Venice, prompts the viewers to consider the parallelism between the film's three protagonists: the director, the actress and the fictional character. These three women of a similar age share the experience of similar dualities: the hidden and the revealed, fragility and power, belonging and displacement. The experience of passage and duality also permeates the design of the exhibition space, where visitors can enter and exit from either side of the pavilion. A large screen, diagonally positioned at the centre, divides the space into two symmetrical halves. The viewers are invited to engage both with Nujoom and Amal's real process of creating the film and with the cinematographic portrayal of the fictional character of Falak. Text in Arabic.

Paul Guiragossian (1926-1993) is one of the most influential artists to emerge from the Arab World in the 20th century. Paul Guiragossian (1926-1993) is one of the most influential artists to emerge from the Arab World in the 20th century. Born to Armenian parents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide, he experienced the consequences of exile, first as a child, and later on as a young refugee from Jerusalem arriving to Beirut in the late 1940s. In the '50s Paul started teaching art in several Armenian schools and worked as an illustrator. He later started his own business with his brother Antoine painting cinema banners, posters, and drawing illustrations for books. Soon after he was discovered for his art and introduced to his contemporaries after which he began exhibiting his works in Beirut and eventually all over the world.

In the thick of the Second World War, the Cairo-based Surrealist collective Art et Liberte were pioneering new art forms and mounting subversive exhibitions that sent shockwaves across local artistic circles. Born with the publication of their Manifesto Long Live Degenerate Art on December 22nd, 1938, the group rejected the convergence of art and nationalism, aligning themselves with a complex, international and evolving Surrealist movement spanning cities such as Paris, London, Mexico City, New York, Beirut and Tokyo. Art and Liberty created a distinct reworking of Surrealism, which provided a generation of disillusioned Egyptian and non-Egyptian artists and writers, men and women alike, with a platform for cultural reform and anti-Fascist protest. Surrealism in Egypt is the first comprehensive analysis of Art and Liberty's artworks, literature and critical writings on Surrealism. By addressing the group's long-lost and often misconstrued legacy, and drawing on a substantial body of previously unpublished primary documents and more than 200 field interviews, the author charts Art and Liberty's significant contribution towards a new definition of Surrealism.Moving beyond the polarizing dichotomies of Saidian Orientalism, this book rewrites the history of Surrealism itself - advocating for a new definition of the movement that reflects an inclusive vision of art history.

This title is centered around the theme of storytelling, new works by twenty-three artists with roots in the Arab world. Twenty-three both established and emerging artists have been commissioned to produce a new work, ranging from painting, drawing and sculpture, to photography, video and mixed-media installations. Through a comparative analysis of these works, the curators highlight a process of constant transmigration, resulting in a diversity of cultural and aesthetic references.