‘The Portrait is an Address’ Exhibition

Beirut Art Center presents The Portrait is an Address, Hassan Khan’s first solo exhibition in the city of Beirut and the first to solely explore one central aspect of Khan’s practice in such depth.

The portrait has played a pivotal role in Khan’s work starting with 100 Portraits in 2001 and is represented in various media. Focusing on this significant direction within Khan’s wider practice, this exhibition aims to explore the primal relation between how we conceive of a self and it’s reproduction (not just representation), or its construction through formal methods. It proposes the portrait as being at all times an absolutely strategic and essential tool of establishing property and/or exhibiting power, a tool to produce meaning and to shape societies visually as well as being an integral part of the collective imaginary.

The Portrait is an Address grapples with the possibility of intimacy, the gaps and losses that are necessary for us to make sense of what we see and what we know, the very possibility of making sense itself. It also simply allows the audience a chance to look at others and themselves in a direct, accessible and emotionally powerful way.