Moved from Haret Hreik to Zico House as the Lebanese-Israeli war rages, Jean-Marc Nahas’ exhibition, Catastrophe, takes on a particularly contemporary dimension. From Thursday 7 December to 16 December 2006, birds took up space and questioned the anxieties of a vulnerable country.
After fifteen years of civil war, Jean-Marc Nahas moved to Paris to pursue his studies in fine arts, then settled in Canada. Back in Lebanon in 1996, the artist joined forces with UMAM Documentation & Research to exhibit a real space of anguish and regret.
Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds, the exhibition featured paper birds hanging from the ceiling by wires. At the same time, each animal invaded the room and lit up a path for reading the space. By escaping from the vital framework of the canvas, Jean-Marc Nahas materialized his frustrations, his anxieties, his wild and violent confusions. The pendular oscillation of the birds reflected the comings and goings of an obscured traumatic past that the Lebanese memory confinement still keeps burning.
This exhibition was organized by Zico House and UMAM Documentation & Research (Beirut).