Galerie Janine Rubeiz in Beirut Art Fair

Galerie Janine Rubeiz is taking part in Beirut Art Fair this year with a booth entirely dedicated to Lebanese contemporary photography. Our exhibition will feature works by emergent and confirmed artists. With photographs by Rima Maroun, Lara Tabet, Rania Matar, Dima Hajjar, Jean-Pierre Watchi, Shirin Abu Shaqra, Marya Kazoun and Francois Sargologo, this booth aims to introduce young artists to the public and to show different trends in Lebanese photography today.

Born in 1983, Rima Maroun is a Lebanese photographer and performer based in Beirut. Graduated with an MA in photography at USEK University in 2006. The same year she co- founded ”Collectif Kahraba’’, a group of artists using visual and performing arts as a means of expression and is performing with the group since then. She received the Anna Lindh foundation Mediterranean award for dialogue through art and culture in 2008 and has been since exhibiting her work throughout Europe and the Middle East countries including Italy, Hungary, Syria, France, Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Montenegro and Lebanon. Her work took part of the second edition of the Photoquai biennale of Paris in 2009. Her work is currently part of “ Meeting Points ” 6 curated by Okwui Enwezor. As a photographer she participated in the dance performance “ Mushrooms and fig leaves ” presented in the 2011 Sharjah Biennale.

Lara Tabet, born in 1983, is a Lebanese photographer and pathologist at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC). Her interest in photography and collection of new and vintage cameras begun six years ago and has been growing ever since. During the summer of 2010, she participated in The Rencontres d’Arles Photographie (Les Rencontres d’Arles), where she attended a workshop hosted by Klavdij Sluban. 25 of her photographs, taken in Arles, were displayed at an exhibition showcasing the works of the 10 participants.

Born and raised in Lebanon Rania Matar moved to the U.S. in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and at Cornell University, she worked as an architect before studying photography at New England School of Photography, and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico with Magnum photographer Constantine Manos. Matar’s work focuses mainly on women and women’s issues. Her work has been published in photography and art magazines, and exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally. She has exhibited at the Southeast Museum of Photography as part of Anthology, at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester as part of Three Concerned Women at the Gallery Mt Ida College, Newton, at the Mosaic Rooms gallery in London, at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, “Select Contemporary Photography” from the Collection of Lucille and Richard Spagnuolo at Georgetown University, and in the “Best of Show” exhibit at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Most recently she was part of the exhibition “Rebirth” at the Beirut Exhibition Center. Matar’s work has won several awards in the past few years, including an artist grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, first prize in New England Photographers Biennial, first prize in Women in Photography International, and honorable mentions at “Prix de la Photographie Paris Px3”, “The Human Condition”, CENTER Santa Fe, Silver Eye Center for Photography, the Photo Review, Lens Culture International and My Art Space.

Dima Hajjar is a visual artist based in Beirut. In her researches, she tackles subjects related to her own background, exploring social and identity issues. She uses objects of public and personal life. De-contextualized, they build new meanings by their mere confrontation in her work. Questioning background issues has led her to diversify her media. She is currently working on a project involving Vermeer’s Lacemaker, which she sets in a context of war, conflict, then reconstruction, all the while attempting to knit the fragments of her identity. Her works include “Scènes de Vie” (1999), The Chattering Court (2003), and Scan Life (2004). Hajjar has been the recipient of many awards, including prizes from the International Millennium Painting Competition (London, Stockholm, New York, 2000), the “Jeux de la Francophonie”, (Ottawa, Canada, 2001), and the Musée Nicolas Sursock (Beirut, 2003). She has had two solo exhibitions in Beirut, and participated in several group shows in France, Canada, Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria, and London. She has recently shown her work in Berlin at the Berliner List for Contemporary Art and Photography (2010). During summer 2011, she held a personal exhibition at Galerie Janine Rubeiz, “Sky under Surveillance” a project in situ featuring a video installation, installation, photography and painting. Recently she was part of the exhibition “Rebirth” at the Beirut Exhibition Center.

Born in 1952, Jean-Pierre Watchi graduated from the London Film School in 1975. He held several individual exhibitions in Lebanon and France and took part in collective exhibitions with Galerie Janine Rubeiz. His work on the image includes videos, photography, prints and special editions of prints. He includes the use of digital technology in the conception and the making of his work. His subject matter remains very personal, somewhere autobiographical with reference to what could constitute a “Lebanese” culture in a very personal way. Yet, his pictorial expression remains very poetic and universal.

Shirin Abu Shaqra was born in Doha in 1978 to a Lebanese father and a Syrian mother. She lived in Montreal, Alexandria, Istanbul and Cairo. She has a Lebanese and a Canadian nationality. She currently resides between Paris and Beirut. Shirin received her MFA with honours in 2010 from the Fresnoy, National Studio for Contemporary Arts in France. Before entering the artistic field, Shirin finished a master in History (2004) and a Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (DEA) in Political Science (2006) in Saint

Joseph University Beirut (USJ). She worked for eight years researching socio-cultural changes in the Arab world at the Centre for Modern Arab Studies (CEMAM – USJ) where she published several academic articles. To date, she has made four films, including the poetic essay “Hold on, My Glamorous” (34’) which won the best film award at the Lebanese Film Festival in 2009 and two short animation films: “Walking Distance” (2008) and “Conversations with Change” (2010).

Born in Lebanon in 1955, François Sargologo resides and works in Paris. As a pluridisciplinary artist, his work explores diffrent aspects of social and introspective issues. Painting, photography and publications of his work have been shown in France, Italy, and Lebanon where he is represented by Galerie Janine Rubeiz. In London he was awarded the European Print Award of excellence.

Marya Kazoun (Beirut, Lebanon, 1976. She lives and works in New York, USA and Venice, Italy) Marya Kazoun grew up in Beirut. In 1984 her family fled the war by moving to Switzerland and later to Montreal where she became Canadian. She completed degrees in Interior architecture and Fine Arts at LAU. In 2001 she moved to NY and completed an MFA in fine arts at the SVA. Her works is interdisciplinary. Her pieces are mainly installations and performances, and often a combination of both. 3D reliefs, paintings, drawings and photos are support studies for her installations/ performances. Every work has a its own narrative. She inhabits her works and plays a central role. Her performances are process-based and often interact with the audience.

She took part in the 51st Venice Biennial in 2005 with a solo show ‘Personal Living Space’. Some of her participations include, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts 2006, the Museum of Modern Art of Klagenfurt 2006, the Sharjah Biennial 8 in 2007, the World Economic Forum in Davos 2008, Pozna Biennial in Poland 2008, the 53rd Venice Biennale 2009 with major works in several shows. Three large works of hers are currently on view at the 54rth Venice Biennial