Abdallah Kahil

Abdallah Kahil is an art/architectural historian, and an artist. His first one-person show in Beirut was in 1980.   He studied and taught in New York for twenty-one years before returning to Lebanon in 2002. In addition to teaching and making artwork; painting, photography and installations, he writes about art and architecture. He has previously exhibited at Esapce SD and has recently participated in the International Artists Workshop at Aley. He currently teaches at the Lebanese American University.

"A House That Anne Frank Did Not Live In, And Books She Did Not Write."

This work draws on both a personal and artistic experience. It is originated by the destruction of our (along with my brother) house in Nabatieh on the eve of the ceasefire of the recent war on Lebanon.   The artistic form of the work relies on two bodies of work I did last year and both were exhibited at Espace SD.

In Nabatieh, I shared a two-story house with my brother and his family.   I lived and stored my books and art work in the lower floor, and he lived with his family in the upper floor.   During the war, my brother and his family left Nabatieh to Beirut.   On the last night of the war, the Israeli planes bombed the house, which is located in a peaceful area that was not used by any militants.   The two-story house was flattened, its stones were turned into gray powder, and with the exception of some books, nothing remained of my 128 boxes of books and large acrylic, oil, egg tempera and pastel artwork.

This work is composed of three major parts; the upper one consists of a composite digital photograph of the rubble of the house, followed downward by an aluminum panel, cold and brutal, from which a piece of shrapnel from the missile that hit the house (and which was found among the rubble projects to the floor) rests among a pile of some of the books, drawings and personal photographs that were in the house and were collected from the surrounding fields.

As much as it is a personal statement of mourning against our loss, it is also a statement against the brutality and hate of the action that caused it.