PARIS PETROLEUM

Mars 2015. Bookshop of the Beirut Art Centre, Lebanon. Éditions La Fabrique in a prominent position. A sign of the arrival of Marie Muracciole as director of the Centre. She was the one who trained me when I was working in the cultural department of the Jeu de Paume. Respect to her for choosing Beirut. Seeing how huge that edition of Walter Benjamin’s Baudelaire is, no surprise, the person who prepared the layout of those millions of footnotes being none other than my friend Alex, the most Lebanese of all of us. Benjamin’s complete works translated into Arabic, that could be a lifetime’s work.

March 2015. Archives of the Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon. Very lucky to be able to consult the museum archives before it reopens a few months later. In addition to the catalogues and brochures documenting exhibitions featuring Lebanese artists, there are also documents on international cooperation, with the Beirut Museum hosting Iraqi artists, for example, via the National Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad (1965). Let’s hope that one day the Sursock will be able to reconnect with the trans-Mediterranean utopia that brought it into being.

December 2016. In the archives of the MACAM (sculpture museum) in Byblos, Beirut, Lebanon. Yet another poster for the famous “international poster exhibitions” in Baghdad. 1982, three years after Saddam Hussein came to power and in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war. Almost impossible now, with the uninterrupted destruction, to imagine all those poster artists and designers from the Arab world meeting in Baghdad. All in the pink, like the pink of this poster, like the golden age. Life in the pink like this poster, pink like the golden age.

April 2015. Arab Image Foundation Library, Beirut, Lebanon. Dubai/ Egypt section. A wonderful resource centre, if you include their famous collection of photographs from the Arab world, which make you want to stay in Beirut for a few months. The subtitle of the book Pearls of Dubai. Indo-Arab relations 1900-1958 opens a new door. It would be nice if, one day, Dubai’s Indo-Arab relations were no longer limited to the contingent of modern slaves who spend their lives polishing away in airports and hotels.

December 2016. In the archives of the MACAM (sculpture museum) in Byblos, Beirut, Lebanon. I’m intrigued by a catalogue. An artist called “Abdell”, La Quarta Guerra Punica, Galleria Agora, Palermo (my favourite city), 1991. I find a run-down looking website where he goes by the name of “Douglas Abdell” (pretty classy): “Lebanese-Italian artist born in Boston and living in Spain, Nurturing the dream of a union of the Phoenician states.” Heady stuff. The guy sounds seriously mystical. The dress code à la Kanye West is worth going for.