Artist Abdallah Hatoum
documents the evolving
Beirut landscape in a
unique way
While most artists are busy recording the
changing landscape of Beirut on film or
with paint, one man is demonstrating
a unique talent with a series of metal
installations of urban sites ravaged by a
civil war.
28-year-old Lebanese artist Abdallah
Hatoum studied Graphic Design at
the Lebanese American University, but
he was never really satisfied with its
limitations to print or digital artworks. “I
also felt an absence of the tremendously
rich Arabic design culture in its programs,
which is a field have a particular interest
in,” he says.
After working in Orient 499, an artisan
boutique in Beirut, which offers bespoke
Middle Eastern handicrafts, he became
interested in object making. Working
on the store’s visual merchandising and
displays really sparked his imagination.
“It was more of an attempt to reconcile
my desire to make things and in the
meantime to express myself in a
playground I identified with. It was the
right place.”
During his daily walks through the
streets of Beirut he has become
witness to the ever-changing signs
of urbanization. He laments the lack
of vision shown by developers, but, it
also gave him inspiration to design a
series of metal installations. Most are
replicas of actual facades of old buildings
in Beirut, biding their time until the
wrecking ball hits. Some of his murals are
accurate reproductions while others are
dramatized.
“The fact that these places and buildings
are waiting to be brought down at any
day to make room for money-hungry
investors with terrible development
plans gave me the urge to document
them in a picturesque way.”
“I reinterpreted them in a more fun and simplified way using Sufi poems of Al Hallaj instead of the verses”
He believes that every dilapidated
building has a story to tell, a tale of
bygone Beirut, an ancient city where
cobbled streets were lined with beautiful
ornate buildings. “Beirut, with its new
urban jumble, has a lot of its collective
memory erased. These murals try as
much as they can to fictionally preserve
landmarks that hold too much memory,
for a lot of people.” His material of choice is metal because “it ages beautifully. It is
also a very flexible material which offers
so many options to work with.”
Apart from these stunning installations
Abdallah has also created a unique range
of mirrors, as well as painted dresses and
shirts inspired by the ancient talismanic
robes custom made for high ranking
figures in the Ottoman Empire. “They
used to be worn as protection against the evil eye and were inscribed with
sophisticated calligraphy, Koran verses and
astronomical calculations. I reinterpreted
them in a more fun and simplified way
using Sufi poems of Al Hallaj instead of
the verses…” Apart from being utterly
gorgeous, they are a truly modern take on
history.
Abdallah Hatoum’s work is currently exhibited
at Orient 499 in Clemenceau, Beirut.