Lebanese filmmaker and videographer Dannielle Arbid and visual artist Ayman Baalbaki will represent Lebanon at the 59th International Art Exhibition that will take place from April 23rd to November 27th, 2022.
Born in Beirut in 1970, Danielle Arbid moved to Paris at the age of 17. She directed her first film in 1997 and has been focusing on fiction since then, with her work being selected in many festivals.
As for Ayman Baalbaki, his artistic work focuses on Lebanese and Middle Eastern issues. Baalbaki was born in Beirut in 1975 and studied Fine Arts at the Lebanese University.
He also graduated with a Diploma in “Art – Space” in Paris and participated in numerous exhibitions in Lebanon and internationally.
The scenography of the Lebanon pavilion will be designed by Aline Asmar D’Amman, a Beirut-born Architect, Interior Designer, and Art Curator based in Paris, and founder of Culture in Architecture.
The exhibition will be curated by Nada Ghandour, a cultural heritage curator.
According to an announcement made by the Ministry of Culture and the Lebanese Visual Arts Association, Arbid and Baalbaki were chosen to represent Lebanon “for their ability to illustrate the plurality and richness of contemporary Lebanese art, which is indeed what makes it singular, and also because they represent the Lebanese people, whether living in Lebanon and elsewhere in the world.”
The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world and one of the oldest. Its first International Art Exhibition was organized in 1895.
The biannual art exhibition had to be canceled twice due to the pandemic and pushed to 2022.
It is worth mentioning that, in 2020, the board of La Biennale di Venezia appointed the Lebanese architect, educator, and scholar Hashim Sarkis as the curator of the 2021 International Architecture Exhibition that had to be postponed. Sarkis was also a member of the international jury of the 2016 Biennale Architettura.
