‘Without Traces’ Exhibition

In “Without Traces”, an exhibition devoted to the fading architectures of Beirut, sculptor Samar Mogharbel brings out the almost spectral and invisible: On the contours of the skyline of the city, washing away the old wounds of a turbulent history and drowning them in concrete, aluminum and glass, it is always possible to see from above the lingering scars from other eras. These traditional houses, most of them without major historical significance, dating back to the Ottoman Empire, the French Mandate and the Independence of the Republic, have witnessed a century of turmoil and are slowly disappearing almost without leaving traces since the end of the war. Behind these abandoned and empty plots of land, lurk the anonymous stories of a city always in constant renewal.

Each one a unique piece of architecture and history, these houses are no longer residencies. They are structures and buildings derelict and under threat, often slated for destruction, either through demolition or abandonment, and eventual oblivion. Through sculpting the houses not in their pristine memory but in their current state of decay- first baking the original structure in clay with great accuracy of detail and then warping them by hand, the artist intervenes in the remnant, creating a frozen moment in time, sometimes poetic, sometimes terrifying. Surviving through Lebanese history but struggling to outlive our own times, these sculptures beget a question: How to dwell in a place already lost?

Samar Mogharbel was born in Beirut (1958) and earned a postgraduate degree in fine art from Goldsmith’s College at the University of London, and was an apprentice at the studio of Michael Cardew, the pupil of one of the pioneering potters in the United Kingdom. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo exhibitions in Lebanon and Sweden, and in group exhibitions in Lebanon, Croatia, France and the UAE. Mogharbel was awarded a special mention at the Salon d’Automne of the Sursock Museum in 1998, the First Prize of the Sursock Museum in 2006, and the Silver Plaque at the Zagreb Clay Fest in Croatia. “Without Trace” is Samar Mogharbel’s second solo exhibition at Agial Art Gallery.

Please Note: On Saturdays, the gallery opens from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.