Lights of Lebanon - Free and United!
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Claude Lemand :
Artists often say that Lebanon’s natural light is exceptional. But by “lights” I mean above all the personalities who made Lebanon the light-country of the East, who shone in all the eras of its tormented history, even though Lebanon has been plunged into political, economic, financial, social, health, food and security chaos, due to the corrupt dominant clans subservient to rival foreign powers and due to the deadly bombings and repeated Israeli invasions.
But Lebanon remains a country from which light springs forth, even from the deepest darkness!
Lights of Lebanon will allow us to bear witness to the luminous face of another Lebanon, a melting pot of civilizations and cultures spread across five continents. This Lebanon, inventor of the merchant marine and the alphabet, a force for millennia-old connections between peoples, the creator of the secular "Nahda", this renaissance of language, literature, political and social thought of a new modern Arab world, freed as much from the yoke of the Ottomans as from the beliefs and prohibitions of sclerotic and feudal religions and societies.
We call for transforming this tragedy into positive action, to demonstrate our solidarity with all the Lebanese people, and especially with the world of arts and culture.
Lights of Lebanon is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art from Lebanon’s cross-border communities. It aims to showcase the immense creativity of three generations of artists from Lebanon and its diaspora, to highlight the originality, richness, and universality of their creations, and to promote them in France, Europe, and around the world, so that they may be appreciated for their true worth within the universal history of art.
The Lebanese have demonstrated that their small country is great and that it has something special to offer the world, despite all its misfortunes!
