Culture

At a time when public debate can seem to be running out of steam, the thinking of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas stands out as a singular compass and remains strikingly relevant today, as it offers a way of thinking about secular modernity, the place of religion, the nation-state and nationalism in a European context, and critical thought more broadly, all through the lens of “discourse ethics” and “dialogue free of domination.” Within this framework, Habermas rejects the notion that good and evil can be defined by an absolute authority, a fixed tradition or an unquestionable metaphysical truth. Instead, he argues that they must be worked out rationally among free and equal individuals in an open space for dialogue. Born in 1929 into a Germany in crisis, Habermas grew up in a relatively sheltered bourgeois household, yet one marked by the ideological divisions of the era. His father joined the Nazi Party – a heavy family legacy in a context where allegiance to the regime had become, for many, as much a social expectation as a political constraint. As a child, Habermas also suffered from a cleft lip, a visible disability in a society that had little tolerance for physical difference. Several surgical procedures marked his childhood, adding to an early experience of vulnerability and of being subject to social scrutiny. As a teenager, he was briefly a member of the Hitler Youth, like nearly everyone of his generation. The end of the war and the gradual discovery of the crimes of Nazism came as a formative shock. This rupture – between indoctrination, reconstruction and the need to think anew – would play a decisive role in shaping his later reflections on memory and reason. In the postwar years, he studied in a Germany still shaped by intellectual figures compromised by their ties to the Nazi regime. While still young, he mounted a forceful critique of Martin Heidegger, focusing in particular on Heidegger’s silence about, and involvement in, the Nazi era. The essay caught the attention of Theodor W. Adorno, a leading figure of the Frankfurt School, who brought him on as an assistant. Habermas initially worked within that critical tradition but gradually moved away from it. Where the Frankfurt School’s early thinkers developed a pessimistic view of modernity and reason, he retained a strong faith in the capacity of language and discussion to foster social bonds and rationality. It was in this context that he developed what he called discourse ethics. A norm is legitimate, he argued, only if it can be accepted by everyone affected by it through dialogue free of domination. Morality, then, rests not on some external truth but on the quality of the deliberative process itself. Unlike Socrates, who sought to draw out a truth presumed to already exist, Habermas emphasizes procedure: it is the discussion itself that establishes validity. This line of thinking led to his theory of “communicative action.” Language, for Habermas, is not merely a tool for exchange but a space structured by implicit demands: truth, sincerity and rightness. To speak is already to enter into a relationship of mutual recognition. From this follows his conception of the public sphere, envisioned as a site of democratic deliberation where citizens exchange and weigh arguments as equals. That vision extends to his political thinking on constitutional patriotism: political belonging, in this framework, no longer rests on national or cultural identity, but on a commitment to the democratic principles guaranteed by the Constitution. This idea is rooted in his rejection of nationalism, which the history of twentieth-century Germany made particularly problematic. Continuing along these lines, his commitment to Europe seeks to move beyond the power politics of nation-states – not to weaken Germany, but to prevent any one nation from dominating the continent. Europe thus becomes a space where cooperation and dialogue take precedence over power struggles. Later in his career, Habermas also revisited the question of religion. Long reserved toward religion, he came to adopt a more open position: the point is neither to incorporate faith into philosophy nor to reject it as irrational, but to recognize that it can still contain moral resources of value to public debate. Religions, in his view, no longer provide comprehensive worldviews, but they continue to transmit essential ethical insights: attentiveness to human vulnerability, a sense of responsibility, recognition of suffering, and a commitment to solidarity. He also stresses that secular modernity did not emerge in a total break with religion but retains some of its legacies. Habermas is, in short, a philosopher of striking contemporary relevance, one well worth discovering or revisiting.

At a time when conflicts are destabilizing cultural balances and directly threatening the treasures of the past, some exhibitions go beyond the purely artistic realm to become genuine acts of cultural resistance. That is precisely the case with the exhibition "Byblos, Millennial City of Lebanon," on display until August 23, 2026, at the Institut du monde arabe (IMA) in Paris. Featuring nearly 400 objects, it traces the ancient history of Byblos, one of the oldest ports in the world, while remaining firmly rooted in current events and the conflict that continues to affect Lebanon and the Middle East today. For the exhibition has also, in spite of itself, been shaped by war. What impact did the war have on this project, both in its organization and its scenography? The latter notably featured a particularly striking element: the inscription "Artwork blocked by the war." Why that choice? Was it a deliberate decision to stir emotion in visitors? An act of resistance in the face of current events? Or something else entirely? Furthermore, what new discoveries have been made about this ancient city? Have those discoveries called into question certain historical assumptions about it? And what remains to be uncovered? These are among the questions we explored with Agnès Carayon, exhibitions curator at the Institut du monde arabe, (see the interview in the attached video). Owning the absence of works blocked by the war Originally scheduled for 2024, the exhibition "Byblos, Millennial City of Lebanon" had to be postponed due to the conflict in the Levant region, which prevented the transport of many works from Lebanon. Two years on, despite an still-unstable situation, it has been relaunched — yet some pieces remain stranded there. Rather than concealing this reality, the organizers embrace it fully. Missing works are flagged throughout the exhibition with the note "artworks blocked by the war," making the direct effects of the conflict on the circulation of heritage visible, and lending immeasurable value to both the works on display and those that are absent. By owning these absences, the exhibition takes on an entirely different dimension, presenting a dual narrative: one of a millennia-old memory, and one of a heritage rendered fragile and halted by contemporary realities. Maintaining such an exhibition under these conditions goes far beyond the traditional scope of a museum. It is an affirmation that culture can endure despite war — that it can continue to circulate and transmit knowledge. "Byblos, Millennial City of Lebanon" thus takes the form of an act of cultural resistance, reminding us that preserving heritage is today, more than ever, a vital imperative. A journey through 9,000 years of history The exhibition immerses visitors in a city that has been inhabited for nearly 9,000 years — a major crossroads of Mediterranean civilizations and the world's first great international seaport. Byblos maintained close ties with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean world, playing a key role in the spread of the Phoenician alphabet. Royal treasures, gold jewelry, ceremonial objects, and recent archaeological finds all bear witness to the richness and far-reaching influence of this civilization. This exploration is extended through a cultural program of lectures, screenings, and discussions that delve deeper into the historical and contemporary issues surrounding Lebanon and its heritage. In keeping with the exhibition, ARTE is also broadcasting the documentary Lebanon: Secrets of the Kingdom of Byblos by Philippe Aractingi, available until October 9, 2026, on arte.tv , extending the journey of discovery beyond the museum's walls. The exhibition is on view until August 23, 2026. For more information, visit: https://www.imarabe.org/fr/agenda/expositions-musee/byblos-cite-millenaire-du-liban

In a previous article, we noted that despite the succession of crises that have beset Lebanon, the country’s artistic scene has continued to display remarkable resilience, both at home and abroad. Exhibitions, festivals, gallery openings, new institutions and heritage initiatives: art and culture linked to Lebanon have never entirely disappeared, despite formidable challenges. On the contrary, they now appear to be regaining momentum, contributing to the emergence of a form of cultural diplomacy on the international stage and offering a glimpse of what could become a distinct cultural policy for the Land of the Cedars. But can this truly be described as a cultural policy? The question is worth asking at a time when Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture is stepping up its efforts and signaling its intention to reposition culture as a vital sector in the country’s development. Broadly speaking, a cultural policy encompasses the measures adopted by public authorities to support artistic creation, safeguard heritage, widen access to culture, foster inclusion and ensure a degree of territorial equity. It requires a coherent national vision, as well as mechanisms capable of sustaining cultural action over the long term. Yet a closer look at Lebanon’s current cultural landscape reveals a striking reality: much is happening, but most initiatives remain concentrated in Beirut. This centralization should not, however, overshadow the renewed dynamism emerging in the country. The reopening of the Empire Cinema in Tripoli, for example, is a significant development in this regard. Beyond restoring a cultural venue, it is helping to revive a piece of the city’s collective memory and reclame the place Tripoli once held in the history of Lebanese cinema. Other initiatives also reflect the revival of cultural activity beyond Beirut. In Zahle, the planned museum dedicated to Saïd Akl reflects a broader effort to strengthen cultural infrastructure across the country. In Tyre, the restoration of former cinemas, such as the Rivoli, is helping to recreate spaces for social. interaction and dialogue – an important development in a context still marked by the traumas of recent conflicts. In the Chouf, heritage projects centered on Deir el-Qamar and Beiteddine, alongside the growth of artists’ residencies, are likewise contributing to a stronger cultural presence throughout the country. The same can be said of the festivals held across Lebanon: Byblos, Cedars, Jounieh, Baalbeck and Beiteddine. While these initiatives are sometimes more fragmented and less visible than those taking place in Beirut, they serve as a reminder that Lebanon’s cultural vitality extends far beyond the capital. Building a Cultural Ecosystem Despite these efforts at decentralization, the country’s main exhibition venues, major cultural institutions and most funding remain concentrated in Beirut. New galleries continue to open, institutions are being restructured, and others are gradually resuming their activities. Recent examples include the Beirut Cinematheque, Cinema Metropolis and, soon, the Grand Theatre of Beirut. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture has revived a number of events and heritage-related projects. Yet the issues raised over the past several years – many of them identified in reports issued by the Ministry of Culture itself – remain as relevant as ever. How can one speak of a genuine national cultural policy when problems relating to transportation, cultural mediation, language barriers and access to the regions remain largely unaddressed? It may be worth approaching the situation from a different angle. The same recent reports from the Ministry of Culture – particularly those devoted to the cultural and creative industries and the Visual Arts Forum – suggest that the current objective may not yet be about establishing a conventional cultural policy, but rather a strategic approach. The priority appears to lie elsewhere: building the foundations of a genuine cultural ecosystem capable of becoming a full-fledged player in the cultural economy. The challenge is to turn the resilience of artists and cultural institutions into sustainable development, jobs and economic growth. Yet this ambition also reveals a reality that is often overlooked: the problem facing Lebanon’s cultural sector is not a lack of actors, since structures already exist. In the field of visual arts, for instance, the Association of Lebanese Painters and Sculptors, as well as the Syndicate of Visual Artists, are officially recognized. And yet many artists are unaware of how they function, or even of their existence. The issue, then, is not so much the absence of organizations, but rather their limited visibility, their low level of activity, or their difficulty in bringing the profession together. A Shortage of Support This issue also arises in the music and performing arts sector. Many Lebanese musicians and singers now choose to deposit or register their works with France’s SACEM, for instance, rather than rely on existing mechanisms in Lebanon. This often reflects a lack of information, but also the limited visibility of local systems for protecting and managing rights. More broadly, Lebanon’s cultural sector suffers from a shortage of support in the field of intellectual property. While France has well-established bodies such as SACEM for authors and composers, SACD for playwrights and audiovisual creators, SPEDIDAM for performing artists, and INPI for industrial property matters, their Lebanese counterparts remain largely unknown to the public and sometimes even to professionals in the sector. Lebanon does, however, have an Intellectual Property Office attached to the Ministry of Economy, responsible for copyright, trademarks and patents. The challenge therefore lies less in the complete absence of such mechanisms than in their visibility, accessibility and uptake by cultural actors themselves. The situation is similar when it comes to the professional status of artists. Many work without contracts, social protection or a clear understanding of their rights. Issues related to intellectual property, copyright and legal protection mechanisms often remain poorly understood. Many Lebanese artists face difficulties abroad simply due to a limited legal knowledge or a poor understanding of intellectual property frameworks – situations that could often have been avoided through better training. Recent reports have highlighted a number of issues: the absence of professional status for artists; a lack of coordination between institutions; insufficient funding mechanisms; difficulties related to heritage protection; and the excessive centralization of cultural activity. They also set out a number of concrete measures: strengthening existing organizations; training professionals; safeguarding archives; supporting creation; developing the cultural and creative industries; and improving the legal recognition of actors in the sector. This is why the professionalization of the sector now appears to be a key priority. Training artists in their rights, as well as training cultural professionals in the realities of the sector, has become essential. In this regard, several initiatives already exist. Among them, the Master’s program in event management at Saint Joseph University – the only one of its kind in Lebanon – contributes to the training of future cultural professionals by covering project management, cultural management, mediation, communication, and broader cultural policy issues. Similarly, ESA Business School offers programs in cultural management and arts administration that also cover legal, contractual and cultural economics dimensions. Culture Back in Motion This is essential. Beyond artistic creation, there is also a need to train those who will one day build the institutions, projects and frameworks capable of sustainably supporting the sector’s development. This vision also aligns with the approach currently being promoted by the Minister of Culture, Ghassan Salamé, who is seeking to restore culture to a central place in the country’s reconstruction agenda, both within Lebanon and across the diaspora and among international partners. The foundations are therefore already in place. What is emerging today is less a fully developed cultural policy than a strategy aimed at structuring a sector that has long been driven almost exclusively by the commitment and resilience of those involved. A genuine cultural policy may come later. It will likely not follow a European or French model but rather take shape in a form adapted to Lebanon’s institutional realities, its diversity, and the essential role played by private, associative and academic initiatives. One thing is nevertheless certain: culture is once again in motion in Lebanon. And while artists must continue to create, it is equally important to train those who will be responsible for organizing, mediating, managing and transmitting this culture in the future. For the rebuilding of a sustainable cultural sector depends as much on artistic output as on the structures that allow it to exist and endure. Read also: Lebanese cultural diplomacy: between influence, solidarity and resistance (1/2)

After more than twenty years spent at the heart of the great houses of high jewelry and international luxury, from Cartier to Hermès, from De Beers to LVMH, between Paris, London and New York, Marie Berthelon could have continued along a perfectly mapped trajectory at the summit of the system. Instead, she chose to step away from it to revive Rouvenat, a nineteenth-century Maison that had disappeared and that she is now reactivating as a living territory, at the crossroads of heritage and the avant-garde. At the head of a small, deeply committed structure, she defends a singular vision of high jewelry: a luxury of circularity and memory, where recycled gold, antique stones rediscovered in forgotten safes, and raw or polished materials do not seek perfection, but light. A jewelry that does not add itself to the world, but awakens it, transforming what already existed into a contemporary presence. This text was not planned, and was not meant to exist in this form. It was born from a lunch beneath the glass roof of 416 rue Saint-Honoré, at Rouvenat, in the presence of Marie Berthelon, co-founder of the Maison, through a conversation that gradually moved beyond the frame of the moment. The table was long, covered with fresh flowers. The cuisine, precise and luminous, was signed by Servan. And in the light filtered through the glass roof, the lunch unfolded gently, almost naturally, as though the place itself were setting the rhythm of the exchanges. A Maison Born of a Living Paradox Marie begins without detour. Rouvenat is “a start-up with 150 years of history.” In that sentence, everything is already there, though not yet unfolded. A Maison founded in 1852, later disappeared, and now reactivated as a contemporary presence, as though time had folded in on itself without ever erasing it. Before that, there was a long journey through the great luxury houses: Cartier, Hermès, De Beers, between Paris, London and New York. Marie rejects none of it, but gradually moves away from it, until reaching that tipping point where a necessity asserts itself: “To leave the highly structured world of corporate life and return to something more embodied, freer, more human.” It is within this shift that Rouvenat tightens around a rare form: only five people in the team, each with a plurality of roles. “Everyone does almost six jobs,” she says, not as an organizational model, but as a way of remaining as close as possible to the material. Luxury as Living Memory Very quickly, another grammar of luxury emerges, less theoretical than sensory, almost organic. Marie speaks of a luxury “with heart, consciousness and circularity,” but these words do not describe a system: they describe an attention. Because here, nothing truly begins with creation. Everything is set in motion by the gaze. “Making something new out of the old,” she says at first, before immediately refining the idea: above all, it is about “bringing a new gaze to what already exists.” It is in this tiny gap that the entire philosophy of the Maison resides. It requires a certain gaze, almost a discipline: learning to see differently, to slow down, to accept searching where things still lie dormant. And also a form of courage: that of not moving toward the obvious new, but returning to what was already waiting to be awakened. From this attention are born pieces that do not seek effect, but presence: “Pieces with heart and spirit.” Living Matter, Active Light In this high jewelry, matter is never decorative. It is tension, passage, circulation. Raw or polished, assembled or living alone, recycled gold or silver captures light without freezing it. It transforms it according to the angle, as though each surface possessed its own breath. The creations go beyond the idea of recycling. They belong to a movement of continuous transformation, in which existing materials are reinterpreted rather than replaced. The stones, antique ones, are rediscovered in forgotten safes, opened after years of silence, sometimes decades, and it is in this return to the surface that their story begins again. “Entirely existing materials,” Marie says, as if to remind us that nothing here starts from zero, but that everything begins again elsewhere. Léon Rouvenat and the Memory of a Sign To understand this vision, one must return to the nineteenth century. Léon Rouvenat, a partner of Christofle, founded the Maison in 1852, at a time when jewelry was becoming a true industry of art, structured and international. It stood out then for a modernity that was astonishing for its time. Its historic hallmark, a discreet, almost secret detail, was a keyhole. A sign conceived as an invitation: to open the jewel, to reveal its interior, to make it an object of passage rather than a closed object. This symbol now irrigates the rebirth of the Maison and notably inspires the Unlock collection, where the keyhole motif becomes a contemporary language, between threshold and intimacy. Around this heritage, several lines structure the current universe, such as Unlock, precisely, where the jewel becomes passage, secret and opening, or Bolt, with its more architectural writing, where forms seem to lock and then free themselves in the light. Frame, for its part, frames the stone like a living image, without ever fixing it. In this continuity, Rouvenat does not seek to reproduce a past, but to extend its gesture: that of a jewel conceived as an object to be read, opened, crossed through. Rediscovery as a Starting Point That said, nothing begins as a strategy. The adventure is born at a Parisian bouquiniste. There, Marie discovers more than 3,000 old Rouvenat gouaches. An intact material, still vibrant. The shock is discreet, but immediate. From there, she does not organize a reconstruction: she attempts a reactivation. “I wanted to give it a voice again,” she says simply. In the boutique beneath the glass roof, this idea becomes tangible. Recycled gold, recycled silver, antique stones rediscovered in safes, certified and reworked materials: everything already exists, but nothing is fixed. What matters is not the origin of the elements, but the way in which they are put back into circulation. And in this movement, matter becomes language: a language of light, contrast, density and breath. The Cases as an Extension of the Gesture More broadly, Rouvenat opens its universe to dialogues with contemporary artists, entrusting them with the creation of its jewelry cases: recycled, these become unique pieces, extensions of their creative worlds. Jewelry thus enters a space of exchange between matter, trace and memory, and ceases to be an isolated object to become a shared territory. It is within this movement that the collaboration with Senz takes shape. A multidisciplinary artist, Senz explores typography, photography and digital printing through dense and symbolic cultural collages. He intervenes on existing cases, made from old boxes that have been found and then transformed, reinterpreting them through pictorial gestures and interventions drawn from urban art, shifting their initial status without freezing them, but instead putting them back into circulation. Over the course of the lunch and the exchanges, one idea runs through everything without ever becoming fixed. Luxury is no longer an accumulation, but a relationship to materials, memories and layered times. And perhaps, above all, a way of looking, with enough slowness for what was buried to begin appearing again. True luxury today may be precisely this: knowing how to reveal, with creativity, the echo of stones that was already there. In conclusion, when the lunch comes to an end, nothing truly closes. The flowers remain on the table as though they were still inhabiting the light, and the glass roof continues to let something slow, almost suspended, filter through. The conversations, for their part, do not seem to stop; they simply move elsewhere. With Marie, nothing resembles a rupture. Rather, it is a continuous shift between eras, gestures, materials and memories. And within Rouvenat, something takes shape with discreet evidence. A high jewelry that does not add, does not overload, but shifts the gaze until things reappear. A Maison traversed by artists and materials, where cases, collections and contemporary gestures prolong one and the same movement: that of a jewelry memory that continues to circulate.

A Lebanese Pop-Up Store is being organized on May 30 and 31 in Paris at the Aalamuna gallery by the company ELFAN to promote Lebanese artists. This new ELFAN initiative is part of a broader global movement aimed at supporting Lebanese artists by developing Lebanese cultural presence in France and Europe. Before outlining the context of this new Lebanese Pop-Up, a brief overview of the ongoing global dynamics, in which Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé is participating, seems useful in several respects. For several years, particularly since the events of 2019 and the explosion at Beirut port in August 2020, Lebanese culture has been experiencing growing momentum abroad. Clearly, Lebanese cultural initiatives outside Lebanon are not new: the diaspora has always played an essential role in promoting and showcasing Lebanese cultural identity. But today, this phenomenon appears to be taking on a new scale. Many artists, creators, intellectuals, and cultural professionals have left Lebanon in recent years, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes to find opportunities that the country could no longer offer them. Because for a long time, culture in Lebanon has remained sidelined behind political, economic, and social emergencies. Yet despite this structural fragility, the Lebanese cultural scene continues to reinvent itself and reach out internationally. In this context, it seems important to examine Lebanese cultural initiatives in France, where we have been witnessing a multiplication of events and projects related to Lebanon for several years. Today, cultural initiatives are multiplying to promote the country abroad, certainly, but also to support Lebanese artists, preserve Lebanon's heritage, and maintain a living connection with Lebanon during this difficult period of crisis and war. A strong Lebanese presence The prestigious Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival is a striking example. Two years ago, Lebanon was highlighted there through a special focus dedicated to Lebanese cinema. Many directors, producers, and industry professionals attended the occasion and contributed to the program, illustrating the growing importance of Lebanese cinema on the international cultural stage. The Arab World Institute (IMA) also plays an important role in this dynamic of showcasing Lebanese heritage and creativity. The current exhibition on Byblos, postponed two years ago because of the war and eventually maintained despite the absence of certain works still held elsewhere, is also a significant example. Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé was present, illustrating the importance now placed on these cultural initiatives abroad. In this same framework, the exhibition Photographing Lebanon's Heritage 1864-1970, after its Paris showing, is open to the public in Marseille until September. The concert by Ibrahim Maalouf and Hiba Tawaji at the IMA, accompanied by several artists from Lebanon, and the presence of Khaled Mouzanar and Nadine Labaki at the Cannes Film Festival—where Khaled Mouzanar was also part of the Un Certain Regard jury—demonstrate how much Lebanese cultural figures now occupy an important place on international stages. This dynamic was also recently illustrated in Saint-Malo, where Lebanon was the guest of honor at the Étonnants Voyageurs festival. Lebanese writers, artists, and intellectuals participated in several discussions on memory, exile, and contemporary Lebanese creation. Ghassan Salamé was also present at this event. "The more tragedies succeed one another, the more the Lebanese people have grown accustomed to expressing them. While I'm speaking to you, Lebanese painters are at the Venice Biennale, Lebanese filmmakers are at the Cannes Film Festival, and Lebanese writers are at the Saint-Malo festival," Ghassan Salamé aptly noted in his speech at the Saint-Malo festival. Minister Salamé has been continuing his travels and meetings abroad for several months to promote Lebanese cultural heritage and influence. In parallel, numerous artistic events are designed as spaces of concrete solidarity with Lebanon. This is notably the case with Moments for Lebanon, an artistic and humanitarian initiative based in Paris, founded by a collective of Lebanese diaspora members, whose second edition is already planned in the City of Light in June 2026 to continue artistic and humanitarian mobilization around Lebanon. ELFAN's new initiative It is this broader dynamic that also drives ELFAN's work in promoting Lebanese artists. This company has set itself the mission, in particular, of training future cultural professionals so they can support and develop this rapidly growing sector. It is within this framework that a new Lebanese Pop-Up Store is being organized on May 30-31 in Paris at the Aalamuna gallery. The event will bring together creators, artists, and entrepreneurs to highlight Lebanese expertise while simultaneously supporting Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross. With the same goal in mind, a themed week dedicated to Lebanon will be organized next July in Clermont-Ferrand, at ELFAN's initiative, at the Atelier Reine Mathilde gallery. On the program: exhibitions by Lebanese painters; calligraphy and dabkeh workshops; film screenings; Lebanese brunch... The aim is to introduce Lebanese culture to a predominantly French audience, with the parallel objective of supporting the Lebanese Red Cross. Faced with this proliferation of initiatives, an important question increasingly comes to mind in the cultural sphere: are we witnessing the establishment of Lebanese cultural diplomacy? Or is it rather a form of cultural resistance? Because unlike institutional cultural diplomacy, which is conceived and structured by the State, many of these projects are now born from individual or associative initiatives, at the local level or within the diaspora—somewhat like Lebanon itself. It is artists, collectives, or event organizers who carry Lebanon's visibility abroad, often without official support. This reflection is moreover beginning to emerge even in discussions at the level of the Ministry of Culture. Minister Ghassan Salamé recently stated that "what saved culture in Lebanon is the fact that it is rooted in society and not in the State. When the State collapsed, culture continued to live." Yet his numerous appearances at these cultural events also show that culture is beginning to take on a significant place in the work and thinking of the Lebanese State. Beyond international influence or the preservation of cultural identity, another essential question now arises: what can be the real contribution of culture and art to Lebanon's development? Can culture participate in economic reconstruction, the creation of opportunities, and maintaining the link between Lebanon and its diaspora? These are reflections that also open up the debate on Lebanese cultural policy itself… Next article: Lebanon's cultural policy

As we have seen previously, Gibran Khalil Gibran was a multifaceted artist – at once poet, thinker, writer, and highly gifted painter. Although he is best known in the West for his literary work The Prophet , published in numerous languages, his pictorial work is equally remarkable and was recognized during his lifetime. “Art is the expression of thought through brush, chisel, pen, or song. It is the divine spark that burns within each of us.” “I would like to paint what lies at the very depths of the human heart.” Gibran showed an aptitude for drawing from childhood. In 1904, his first drawings were exhibited at Fred Holland Day’s studio in Boston, thanks to Mary Haskell, his mentor. In 1908, encouraged by her, he enrolled at the Académie Julian as well as in Auguste Rodin’s studio in Paris in order to refine his painting technique. This encounter with Rodin marked a turning point in his vision of the human body. Rodin himself compared Gibran to William Blake. Like Blake, Gibran illustrated his own texts, seeking to create a “total” work in which word and image echo one another. In Paris, he also studied under the painter Pierre Marcel-Béronneau, whose technical mastery and mystical inspirations he particularly admired. Gibran, the painter as much as Gibran the writer, represents a synthesis of two worlds: on one side, the United States and his Parisian academic training, and on the other, his Lebanese roots, steeped in the beauty and mystical spirituality of the Lebanese mountains. “Self Contemplate, 1914.” Oil on Canvas. (Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum) His Work Gibran was essentially self-taught. He produced a substantial body of artistic work. From the very beginning, his pieces were exhibited in prestigious galleries, including the Montross Gallery and M. Knoedler & Co. in New York. His Style: Mystical Symbolism “Art does not consist in copying reality, but in capturing the emotion that reality awakens in us.” Gibran’s pictorial work is an extension of his philosophy. His artworks are not meant to be merely looked at, but contemplated. Gibran’s style belongs to a romantic and spiritual symbolism that does not align with the artistic movements of his time, such as Cubism or Fauvism. He gives primacy to the human body, which he sees as the temple of the soul – “beauty in its purest state.” Through human forms, he seeks closeness to God and to reveal the unity of the universe. His figures, often nude, represent humanity in its original state of purity, stripped of social conventions. The bodies, with their blurred and ethereal outlines, seem to emerge from mist or dreamlike haze, suggesting the spirit’s liberation from matter. Gibran frequently uses muted tones, with gradients of brown, pale blue, and pinkish beige. His washes are light, almost transparent. He excels in pencil drawing, charcoal, and watercolor. His oil paintings retain the same diffuse softness, prioritizing emotion over realism. “The Sad Mona Lisa, 1914.” Oil on Canvas. (Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum) Where to See His Works? The largest collection is housed at the Gibran Museum in Bsharri, Lebanon. His works can also be seen in some of the most prominent American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Newark Museum, as well as at Mathaf, in Qatar. The Gibran Museum The museum is located in Bsharri, his hometown, in the Qadisha Valley, within the former Mar Sarkis Monastery (Saint Sergius), a cave monastery whose origins date back to the 7th century. At the end of his life, Gibran expressed the wish to acquire this monastery as a retreat and, eventually, as his burial place. After his death, his sister Miriana, with the help of Mary Haskell, purchased the site to fulfill his wish. The museum, which officially opened its doors in 1975, spans sixteen rooms and houses Gibran’s tomb as well as more than 440 original works. It also preserves his personal belongings, private library, New York furniture, manuscripts, and, most notably, his Bible. The site is managed by the Gibran National Committee, which carefully safeguards and transmits his cultural legacy. “The Exiled from Love, 1914.” Oil on Canvas. (Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum) (Re)Discovering Gibran “When you reach the summit of the mountain, you will finally begin to climb.” The only way to (re)discover Gibran the painter is to visit his museum in Bsharri, to absorb the distinctive atmosphere of the site and the surrounding nature, and then to take time to contemplate his paintings in silence. As for the writer, one would need to obtain his complete works and read them gradually in their original language, savouring each word as though it were a precious nectar. “A little time, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall give me birth.” ( The Prophet ) Read more: Gibran Khalil Gibran: A Bridge of Light Between East and West (1/3) Gibran Khalil Gibran: A Bridge of Light Between East and West (2/3)

In our previous article, we reviewed Gibran’s life. In this second installment, we explore several facets of the thinker: the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gibran the rebel, and his role as a precursor of Lebanese nationalism. “I am a son of earth and sky. The forest is my church, the field my sanctuary, and the stars my companions in meditation.” Gibran Khalil Gibran “Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman – a rope over an abyss .” Friedrich Nietzsche During his stay in Paris, Gibran discovered Nietzsche, a revelation that profoundly transformed both his thought and his style. He moved from a melancholic, nostalgic poet to a thundering prophetic voice. His writing became aphoristic, prophetic, and powerful. Yet unlike Nietzsche – an atheistic, cynical, and deeply pessimistic thinker – Gibran remained profoundly faithful and filled with hope. In fact, Gibran reinterpreted Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch (Superman) through his Eastern sensibility as well as through his vision of Lebanese nationalism and the freedom of peoples. Moreover, the very structure of The Prophet (Al-Mustafa addressing a crowd before the veils are lifted) strikingly echoes Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra . “The Wanderer, 1928.” Charcoal. (Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum) The Relationship with the Church: A Rebellious Believer “ Your faith is within you; and it is the beating of your heart. ” “ Religion is a heart that opens, not a doctrine that closes. ” Gibran Khalil Gibran Gibran’s relationship with the Church was one of passionate “love and hate.” A Maronite Christian by birth and cultural upbringing, his childhood was steeped in the spirituality of Lebanon’s sacred Qadisha Valley, the historic refuge of Lebanese monks. His style was directly shaped by the Bible, which he read repeatedly. In The Prophet , his central character speaks in parables, reminiscent of Scriptures. Yet Gibran would go on to become one of the fiercest critics of ecclesiastical institution. His book Rebellious Spirits , published in 1908, caused a scandal. He denounced the alliance between feudal lords and the clergy, describing certain priests as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Upon publication, the book was deemed “heretical and revolutionary.” Yet, Gibran was not attacking faith itself, but the institution’s hypocrisy. “You have your religion and I have mine,” he wrote. Although influenced by Sufism and Hinduism, Gibran remained fundamentally Christian. He was a Christian of the early origins, who reduced everything to Jesus, to whom he devoted absolute reverence. Deeply influenced by European Romanticism and American Transcendentalism, he saw Christ not as a figure of suffering and submission, but as a fierce “lion,” a revolutionary who breaks the chains of organized religion. Today, his relationship with the Church becomes more reconciled. He is widely welcomed in ecclesiastical circles. In the United States, some priests officiate weddings by reading passages from The Prophet . Academic theses by religious scholars have been devoted to him. Moreover, the first Arabic translation of The Prophet was carried out by an Orthodox priest. “The Archer, 1923.” Aquarelle. (Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum) The Invention of an “Imaginary Lebanon” “ Lebanon is the soil of my soul and the cradle of my dreams. Your Lebanon is an octopus-like government with many tentacles. ” Gibran Khalil Gibran At a time when Lebanon was under Ottoman rule and later the French Mandate, Gibran played a key role in shaping modern Lebanese identity. Yet he was not a political ideologue. From New York, where he founded the Pen League (al-Rabita al-qalamiyya), he revolutionized Arabic literature and gave new face to the creative genius of the Lebanese diaspora. He became a national symbol embodying an intellectual, free and spiritual Lebanon. Influenced by Nietzsche, Gibran advocated for a Lebanese identity rooted in freedom, strength, and self-transcendence. He did not envision a Lebanese people defined by victimhood or submission, but a nation freed from corruption and intellectually open to the world: a Lebanon as a bridge between cultures, distinct from the Arab world through its spirituality, history, and openness. During the great famine of 1914, Gibran actively supported Lebanon through his writings, but when President Ayoub Tabet offered him a ministerial post, he refused, convinced that politics was not his path. Today, Gibran’s writings are regularly appropriated by Lebanese politicians and repurposed in the service of opportunistic nationalism. Invoking Gibran allows some political figures to project an intellectual and moral stature while ignoring his sharp critiques of corruption and hypocrisy of those in power. Gibran, an Unwitting Icon of Counterculture In the United States, The Prophet , published in 1923, became something of a counterculture bible in the 1960s. It won over hippie’s circles with its universal spirituality and ecumenical tone. Students read it on campuses and held it up as a manifesto for a spiritual quest outside institutional frameworks. Yet this image is reductive. Gibran was neither a guru nor a New Age prophet. He is a Christian revolutionary, profoundly imbued with Christ. Read more on this topic: Gibran Khalil Gibran: A Bridge of Light Between East and West (1/3)

An exceptional artistic return by Lebanese visual artist Walid Raad, after forty years or so spent in New York, to exhibit his work once again at the Venice Biennale, then at the Festival d'Automne in Paris. A major exhibition that opens with the "inverted chassis" of a Volkswagen Beetle, in an avant-garde visual art space rich with inventive ideas born from the shaping of imaginaries, denouncing the organisation of wars and new bombs, without any faltering in the balance or mechanisms of conception. It is an art that weaves the play of ideas with fictional archives around the geopolitics of the Middle East and the "war market" — a market that endures on the terrain of artistic competition, allowing the best to triumph illusorily in the invention of imaginaries, imaginaries distinguished by a poetic irony constructed in the gaps of Lebanese memory. Who does not remember the bombardment launched by the American navy following the first bloody and suicidal attacks carried out by the doctrinaire Hezbollah movement in February 1984 against American Marine forces stationed in Lebanon — attacks after which the warship USS New Jersey, bound for Lebanese shores, fired sixteen 300-inch shells towards Syrian and Druze positions, shells each weighing as much as a Volkswagen Beetle? Hence the name the Lebanese gave to these projectiles: the "flying Volkswagens". One of these shells fell in the garden of the teenage boy in the village of Bmariam in Mount Lebanon. Walid Raad and his cousins then turned the bomb crater into a swimming pool to play in. This is the war that can be re-experienced, or played in, in order to inhabit peace after the fact — with a great artist, a major figure in Lebanese contemporary art, born in 1967, passionate and convinced by his firm belief that human truth is under attack. War thus becomes something ordinary. This is how things present themselves in the reports of power. As though it were error itself that was being staged. No less seductive than truth, so long as approaching it is an entirely different matter. Since 1993, Walid Raad has lived in the United States, returning to Lebanon roughly every month, where members of his family still live in Beirut. In 1997, he participated in the activities of the Arab Image Foundation, which aims to collect and evaluate the visual heritage of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arab diaspora. For decades, his works — exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at Documenta in Kassel — have distinguished themselves as the output of a central figure in the SFA, Arab Science Fiction, a current that critiques official narratives and is recognised in particular through the artistic inventions of a group of Lebanese artists living there or members of the diaspora, all sharing the same obsession with the gaps in their country's memory. He has shared exhibition spaces with many colleagues, such as Rabih Mroué, Akram Zaatari, Khalil Joreige, and Joana Hadjithomas, and is currently alongside some of them at the Psykalis Bay Foundation in Milan, as part of the exhibition "Crossroads: Beirut Contemporary". The exhibition evokes "a city shaped by cycles of construction, destruction and post-war reconstruction not as a linear heritage, but through damaged archives, unstable ground, fragile materials, and temporal discontinuities". Walid Raad is known as an "inventor of fake news about the Middle East", creator of fictitious archives around the war he experienced in his childhood, situated within a movement of free art — in the manner of free poetry — forming part of the political, social and cultural narratives of a youth torn between commitment, realistic utopia, and rebellion. He currently exhibits black-and-white archival photographs of an American fleet, in what resembles an intimate perception of narratives mixing weapons and childhoods. But where does the boundary begin between fiction and reality in what the eye perceives of the dense fires of war in the Middle East, the means of survival, and an image still visible there — visible through the many layers of a frozen memory, haunted by the chasm of the war crater and of play? He rests his gaze to rediscover what remains of that childhood once stripped of its false pretensions. Beauty draws its source only from the singular wound visible in his works, where he decides to break from withdrawal from the world and proclaim a provisional solitude, however deep. This is the same era of the nineteen-eighties, when the Lebanese armed militias assigned code names to the leaders of the various factions, each bearing the name of a flower. Raad writes in the exhibition catalogue that the woman responsible for devising this coding system had studied botany at the American University of Beirut, and had also made a collage of Hosni Mubarak's portraits with a peony head. He recounts how Yasser Arafat, the target of numerous assassination attempts, never slept in the same bed twice, and how an obsessive historian had reconstructed these various layers by browsing — in the manner of Sophie Calle — hotel rooms in Paris and Cairo to capture the photographs he exhibits, which resemble documents from that period. These observations appear as "reliable" information, until one realises that he is playing in the "excavations of war", just as the child had played in the "bomb crater". These "falsified" photographs, these "empty beds" sometimes occupied by "PLO leaders" during an "impossible warrior's rest", allow one to glimpse, through them, an entire people. One searches for "surviving corpses", or for "a cause that never sleeps". Some of these images are authentic, others have been fashioned to become so in the labyrinths of fiction — as he had been doing since 1989, the year in which he founded his collective named "The Atlas Group", a gathering of "fictitious researchers" (dissolved in 2004 and counting only one member: Walid Raad himself). Today, more simply, he archives new falsified archives in the face of the "scarcity of reliable archives" on the contemporary history of Lebanon. Through the technique of Arab Science Fiction (SFA), Walid Raad poses, in a post-war context, questions about political structures, memory and reparation in a country that has witnessed successive wars. Through an approach at once satirical, modernist, mythological and poetic, worked through by a recurring obsession, all of these works respond in their own way to the logic of trauma and the rhythmic and compositional repetition of yesterday's war — or tomorrow's — within destinies from which death is erased in its pain, in a mockery of fate and history, because the war has never stopped and the fabricated truths remain too harsh to express the eternal conflict. Raad stands against a fragile symbolism, that is, against stopping at the memory of childhood alone — the child cannot live without growing somewhat. He is nothing but a toymaker, and what importance does that have, as Nietzsche would say? Raad plays the role of artistic authority in all that it implies, contains and demands. Not in the sense of a decisive political statement, but according to the dramatic givens of the state of war, as an instrument of irony against the game of the absurd and the violations, blunders and aggressions it commits. This might help to rid oneself of the feeling of discouragement — and if we could manage that, everything might be possible in Lebanon. Six other Lebanese artists will join Walid Raad at the Venice Biennale, an ensemble that says something of the strategic position of this artistic arena in contemporary debates around memory, archive, narrative and forms of expression in a harsh geopolitical context, that of the ongoing wars.

“I am but a small cloud drifting across the sky, knowing neither where it goes nor whence it came.” Some souls defy every border and elude every label. Gibran Khalil Gibran was one of them. At once celebrated and strangely insufficiently known, he remains among the most compelling figures of the twentieth century. Born in Lebanon, he came of age amid the restless energy of Boston and New York City. Through his work, Gibran quietly disproved Rudyard Kipling’s famous assertion that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” In his life and writing, he embodied both the spiritual depth of the East and the rational modernity of the West. Too often reduced to the extraordinary global success of his masterpiece, The Prophet – long regarded as one of the most widely read books in the United States after the Bible – Gibran was a complete artist, a “seeker of the absolute” who wielded the paintbrush with the same intensity as the pen. His work still resonates today with striking modernity. Was he a painter, a philosopher, a poet, a writer – or all of these at once? Having met him in Paris, Auguste Rodin is said to have remarked: “The world awaits a new William Blake, and he has been born in the East.” Like Blake, Gibran did not see himself as a writer who painted, but as an artist whose inner vision found equal expression through the pen and the brush. To better understand this singular figure, one must look to the influences that shaped the thinker, the writer – reputedly among the most widely read authors in the world after William Shakespeare and Laozi – and the painter whose ethereal works sought to reveal the human soul stripped of its social disguises. 1883–1931: A Life Between Two Worlds Gibran Khalil Gibran was born in 1883 in Bsharri, a Christian village in northern Lebanon, then part of the Ottoman Empire, into a Maronite Christian family. His grandfather was a priest. He was only 12 when his mother emigrated with him and his two sisters to Boston, seeking refuge from poverty and from an alcoholic husband. Their early years in the United States were marked by hardship and loss. His half-brother, sister and mother all succumbed to tuberculosis. Between 1908 and 1910, Gibran returned to Beirut to study at the Collège de la Sagesse before moving to Paris, where he spent two years at the Académie Julian refining his artistic technique. It was there that he encountered, among others, Auguste Rodin. Women and Gibran Woman is the temple of life.” “In the eyes of a woman one can read the history of humanity, for she carries within her both the mystery of creation and the power of unconditional love.” Women occupied a central place in the life of Gibran Khalil Gibran. He regarded them with reverence and profound respect, never merely as objects of desire. As he himself often acknowledged, his life was shaped and sustained by extraordinary women. Though he never married, he loved several deeply. Throughout his life, he called for the emancipation of Arab women, urging them to break free from the constraints of tradition and patriarchal society. Foremost among the women in his life was his mother, to whom he was devoted with near-total reverence. He admired the courage she displayed in leaving everything behind to emigrate to the United States in search of a better life for her children. One anecdote captures particularly well his relationship with women. During his years in Paris, a model who posed nude for artists was so moved by Gibran’s gentleness and respect that she became deeply attached to him. As a gesture of gratitude, she insisted on washing his clothes each day, without accepting payment. Mary Haskell She was both his mentor and his patron, and played a decisive role in his life. It was Mary Haskell who introduced Gibran to New York’s artistic and publishing circles and helped launch his career. Though she was ten years older than him, she remained the only woman Gibran ever asked to marry him. Their relationship is documented in Mary Haskell’s journals, published after her death. May Ziadeh It remains one of the most beautiful and unusual love stories in modern literary history. Gibran lived in New York, while May Ziadeh – the pioneering feminist writer and intellectual – lived in Cairo. For nearly twenty years, they exchanged letters without ever meeting in person. Their correspondence blended intellectual debate, emotional support and a form of almost mystical passion. The relationship perfectly embodied Gibran’s conception of love: a communion of souls transcending physical attachment and geographical distance. He regarded her as his spiritual counterpart, his alter ego. One should also mention his close friendship with Barbara Young, his secretary, who during the final years of his life, assisted him with his English writings.

At the Grand Palais, a rare exhibition of exceptional scope, bringing together more than three hundred works from international collections, explores until 26 July the final thirteen years of Henri Matisse. Far from an epilogue, it reveals a moment of intensity in which, constrained by illness, the artist entirely reinvents his language. Paintings, drawings, books, textiles, stained glass and cut gouaches compose a journey conceived as a living studio: that of a man who, at the edge of the end, chooses to open himself still further. There are exhibitions that open like doors, and then there are those that impose themselves more slowly, almost quietly, until they displace something older than the gaze itself: a manner of holding time, a dense and profound way of standing upright before it, in its slowness as in its light. At the Grand Palais, this journey devoted to Matisse stands in precisely that fragile interval where life narrows and yet the work expands. In 1941, following an operation that left him lastingly weakened, the artist came close to death. He would later speak of a “second life,” as of a stolen space where everything begins again differently — not through rupture, but through a silent intensification of the gaze. Holding the world The first rooms still carry, in undertone, the weight of the world. The war moves through the era without ever settling there openly. Yet it circulates in absences, in restraints, in the very gestures of Matisse, who remained in France and refused any direct representation of violence. In the drawings of Themes and Variations (1941–1942), the line advances like a held breath. Figures appear, fade, return elsewhere, as if form were less intent on fixing itself than on remaining alive. Nothing truly stabilises, and yet nothing is lost. This is not a withdrawal from the world, but another way of inhabiting it — slower, perhaps more fragile, yet of a rare exigency. And in this economy of near-nothingness, something already settles: a peace that rests on nothing acquired, but on a continuous attention. Light does not console Then colour opens, gently, without spectacular gesture. In The Romanian Blouse (1940), the clear ground breathes like a linen cloth exposed to open air, while the reds, blues and yellows assert themselves with an almost carnal intensity. Light softens nothing. Rather, it traverses, insists, holds. In Matisse, it is never decoration. Light is decision, almost an interior position: a way of remaining on the side of what persists. Vence, time slowed At Vence, time changes its density. In the Vence Interiors (1947–1948), including Large Red Interior (1948), colour no longer covers space: it permeates it. The red becomes matter, warmth, continuous presence. The objects — table, plant, window — are no more than points of equilibrium within a vaster vibration. One no longer truly looks at these works; one enters them. And gradually, something undoes itself within perception itself, as though the world were willing to weigh a little less than before. Cutting into light With Jazz (1943–1947) and then the cut gouaches, a shift occurs, more radical still than it first appears. In Icarus (1947), the black figure seems to float amid coloured flashes beating around it, between fall and suspension. In the Blue Nudes (1952), blue becomes density, almost solid silence, yet traversed by a surprisingly carnal presence. In The Sadness of the King (1952), forms respond to one another like slow music, each colour seeming to carry a contained emotion, never overflowing. With The Sheaf (1953), plant forms rise in an almost organic movement, as if painting were recovering an ancient sap, a thrust of life without narrative. Here, everything seems to have been brought back to the essential — not through reduction but through intensification. A habitable space The Chapel of the Rosary at Vence (1947–1951) marks a total displacement. Matisse is no longer composing works but a place. A space in which everything participates: walls, stained glass, ceramics, vestments. The lines reduce themselves to a few precise signs, almost breathed, and the colours — blue, green and yellow — are conceived to be traversed by the light of day. In the morning, they appear fresh, almost translucent. At noon, they thicken, vibrate more intensely. In the evening, they settle, as though the light itself were calming. Everything here rests on an attentiveness to the passage of time, to its finest nuances. The final gesture Towards the end of the exhibition’s journey, painting almost entirely fades away. Matisse, weakened, continues to cut coloured papers which he moves around him like a garden held in suspension. The forms are no longer painted; they are adjusted, displaced, re-tuned, as if the image were born directly from gesture and breath. Nothing appears to be a completion. Everything seems, on the contrary, to grow lighter still, until it touches a form of bare necessity. In a note from 1950, a sentence moves through this period like a quiet murmur, almost a confidence addressed to time: “I hope that however old we live to be, we shall die young.” Not in the sense of the body, but in that capacity to remain traversed, still, by what is coming. What light leaves behind What this exhibition offers to see goes far beyond the chronology of a late work. It reveals a manner of moving through time, illness and constraint without ever closing in on oneself. Faced with what narrows, Matisse responds neither with drama nor with rupture, but with an inverse movement: a continuous opening, almost instinctive, where simplification becomes intensity. The images do not impose themselves durably. They persist otherwise — as a slow, diffuse sensation that continues to work upon the gaze long after the exit. And what remains is this impression, discreet but persistent: that art, when it attains this rightness, does not hold the world back. It lets the world colour itself until it becomes luminous.