24/09/2024
“Lucien Samaha, says his exhibition title,
“is uneasy about Beirut”
as if decades of peace, love, and understanding were about to unravel.
Where others might see midnight, he photographs a twilit city, and he welcomes the nostalgic as well as ominous side of twilight.
Houses share their silhouettes with vegetation, ambiguously the symbol of an abandoned city or of life. They bathe in warm shadows, while clouds have an unnatural brightness amid the sunset glow. A utility pole displaces the frame for another touch of unease but also stabilizes the composition bombed-out buildings and empty landscapes.
Samaha is lying in a burned-out basement with the full moon in his eyes.
But not a real moon, for the nostalgia extends to his pace and technique. He works constantly but needs a push to complete an exhibition. He underexposes film so that he can shoot in daylight, the cinematic technique called la nuit américaine. (Is it coincidence that Beirut has a respected American university?)
The English term, day for night, already stood for old Hollywood memories when François Truffaut used it for his 1973 movie title.
Samaha also uses a blurred focus, before processing the image digitally, adding a lumpy grain.
The results, at Sara Techia through April 12, look just gorgeous enough to demand a reality check, and that is not necessarily a weakness.”
———-
“Lucien Samaha is uneasy about Beirut. Sadly, for more than thirty years there has been plenty to be uneasy about in the city that once upon a time was known as the
“Paris of the Middle East.”
The exhibition “Lucien Samaha is Uneasy About Beirut,” currently in its final week (April 2008) at the Sara Tecchia Roma New York gallery, showcases Samaha’s haunting imagery from the capital of war torn Lebanon.
Since 1975, this beleaguered country has witnessed a 15+ year Civil War, been used a proxy battleground by both neighboring countries and global powers, and still teeters on the brink of plunging back into chaos as sectarian strife continues.”
