Issue 13-5

Love it or hate it, it’s hard to be indifferent about Beirut. This issue bears the fruits of the stories we encountered on the ground. It’s not a look back at what Beirut was but at what Beirut is today, through the eyes of the artists who are shaping, and shaped by, this vibrant city. This includes one-on-one’s with 15 locally-based artists such as Alfred Tarazi, Ayman Baalbaki, Katya Traboulsi, Serge Najjar, Marwan Rechmaoui, Stéphanie Saadé, Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige and more as well as a discussion with Saleh Barakat on Waddah Faris. In addition outside of Lebanon, we see Kazakh artists dealing with a post-soviet world, visit Fahrelnissa Zeid’s retrospective at Tate Modern and travel to Contemporary Istanbul and Istanbul’s 15th biennial.