Beirut erects a monument paying homage to Marika Spiridon
Beirut erects a monument paying homage to Marika Spiridon
Omar Fakhoury
Omar Fakhoury’s intervention takes the form of a puff piece in the Daily Star; its headline reads: Beirut erects a monument paying homage to Marika Spiridon accompanied by a photo for Spiridon known to be a Greek legend from the 50’s who used to run a brothel on Moutanabi Street in Beirut. The headline refers readers to read the remainder of the article on page 9, which is in fact a missing page in this edition of the newspaper. The reader looks in vain for an article that doesn’t exist, searching for a story about a highly contested public space in Beirut.
Works on paper is a series of artist interventions in four Lebanese newspapers – Assafir, Al Akhbar, The Daily Star, and L’Orient Le Jour. The Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of the Arts in Lebanon (APEAL) with the contribution of Temporary Art Platform commissioned 12 artists to reflect upon the space and the physicality of the newspaper as a space for engagement with the public. On the last Saturday of the month – April, May & June 2016 – each newspaper printed one artist intervention within their pages. The newspaper allows the coming together of content and form. These interventions reconsidered the associations the public may have with this popular everyday “space” and present a range of forms and dimensions that respond to, challenge, or alter the media. Once printed, these artist interventions allowed the public to claim ownership of the work as a tangible object that they can alter, use, and respond to. The papers’ broad local distribution channels offered the artworks to circulate to a wider audience outside of the conventional realm of the arts, creating a greater potential for community engagement.
Year: 2016
Location: Local newspapers in Lebanon
Explore more from this framework
Date: 2016
Location: The Daily Star newspaper
Medium: Publication
Material: N/A
Section: Contemporary
Duration: Ephemeral
Tags:
Site-specific Intervention
Site-specific Intervention
Site-specific artworks / projects take into consideration the location where it is to be exposed, with regard to both space and community. In other words, it is marked with the site’s history, physical elements, topographical features, socioeconomic factors and/or other significant elements, which make the work impossible to displace, or, at the least, less relevant if not apprehended within this site.
Explore more Site-specific Intervention
Site-specific artworks / projects take into consideration the location where it is to be exposed, with regard to both space and community. In other words, it is marked with the site’s history, physical elements, topographical features, socioeconomic factors and/or other significant elements, which make the work impossible to displace, or, at the least, less relevant if not apprehended within this site.
Explore more Site-specific Intervention
Framework: Works on Paper
Authorizations: N/A
Commissioner: APEAL & Temporary Art Platform
This category refers to artworks or projects whose temporality is inherent to the concept, the material, and the context in which it is found. The work cannot be embodied in any lasting object.
Explore more Ephemeral artworks
