The Running Horse

“The spirals function as portals; for me during my experiencing the conception of the

spiral, and for the onlookers, should they allow themselves to enter.

In this new body of work, Talar Aghbashian continues to explore themes of ambiguities of memory, non-linearity of represented time, blurring distinctions between fiction and reality.

Photography portraiture has long been a practice of peering at the other, some might say voyeuristically through the photographer’s lens by the photographer and the viewers, privileging a subject, a moment, an experience of the sitter - an attempt at immortality.

Take me to this place: I want to do the memories lays out a constellation of forms and reproduction procedures popularized in contemporary photographic studio practices. The work explores and manipulates the techniques that have fashioned a culture of reproducibility and standardization and accelerated the Arab world’s fascination with fame. Portraiture becomes an art of disembodied faces and uprooted sceneries, infinitely reproducible and ultimately unconvincing.

Emeric Lhuisset is a multidisciplinary artist who often travels to conflict zones to create works that question the relationship between contemporary art and geopolitics. Although Emeric’s artistic output has always drawn on current events and the war journalist tradition, with the present exhibition, aptly entitled “Theater of War”, Emeric takes his hybrid practice even further.

The idea for the present exhibition A Territory of Resistance came about during a conversation with artist Sirine Fattouh on two of her videos, Love Talk 1 and Love Talk 2 (2009), in which two professional weight lifters share their perceptions of themselves and their thoughts on how others perceive them. A discussion ensued on the notion of the body in its corporeality and socio-cultural construction.

Boudoir is Mazen Fayad’s initiation into the art world although he has been immersed behind the scenes for a while now. Award winning Creative and Film Director, Mazen completed his studies between Beirut, London, and New York and has worked with some of the most prestigious commercial brands on the market.

Songs of Ordinary Madness is a group exhibition bringing together nine artists from different nationalities and backgrounds consciously looking to evaluate how subjectivity pertains to the ‘peculiar’ in everyday life. The works commissioned for the exhibition are constricted by a rule of 50 x 50 x 50 cm, which will format the works or feed the concept of the end projects.

In The Oath, Alfred Tarazi goes beyond the mere presentation of his work, to propagate an idea in order to involve the audience in suggestions, memories and visual stimulation. With the works presented in this first solo exhibition at The Running Horse, Alfred creates an all-encompassing sensory experience that invites the audience to relive certain fragments from the past in a carefully orchestrated exhibition.

The works featured in this exhibition are directly related to the latest rapid socio-political changes that the Arab region has been undergoing. The works can be viewed as two separate bodies with larger and smaller pieces but they are nevertheless related in approach and thematics.

A gush of water cleared the land is a group exhibition bringing together the works of Lebanese painter Talar Aghbashian, American fine artist Juan Fontanive, Lebanese photographer Karen Kalou and Lebanese fine artist Laura Pharaon. It is a sensory exhibition inspired by contemporary environmental traumas and alluding to the symbolism of water from subaquatic ecosystems and its mysticism to a psychoanalytic exploration of dreams and their inseparable association to art and life.

The Manner of Silence is a solo exhibition covering several aspects of the practice of Maryam Amini, a notable growing Iranian artist whose multifarious body of work reflects with grace the dark yet delightful nature of the “human”. The interactive series of works produced for this exhibition is a reconciled assemblage of organic drawings, paintings, and light-box installations, resembling a cabinet of curiosities.

Self-Portraiture is a common and relatively old practice, a mirror where the artist faces the limits of his physicality through any chosen media. In Rasha Kahil’s In Your Home series, taken between 2008 and 2011,her lens is her mirror, her eye, yet leaving a large part of the work unpremeditated in these spontaneous and prompt moments by the camera.

Desires, Nightmares and Dreams II brings together such distinct artists as Aaron Johnson, Carlo Keshishian, Emi Miyashita, Greely Myatt and David Siepert. This second edition builds upon and develops the first edition, Desires, Nightmares and Dreams I, to further consolidate and propagate The Running Horse’s contemporary art perception.

The Running Horse is happy to introduce The Running Talent Karen Kalou in her first solo exhibition The Rain Series. Kalou approaches this series with an impressionist's eye and tries to capture the transient effects of light and movement in Beirut's rainy landscapes.

Despite the presence of elements of conflict and struggle in Tarazi's work, this exhibition's title does not aim to reflect these elements in the context of war; it is rather a theme, a reflection of the struggles common to the thought and work process of these three Lebanese artists and the works presented here.

Al Mohasen's textured and colourful compositions are developed around blurred black and white portraits of men and women who mastered the beautiful art of the Maqam Al Iraqi, and are infused with the spirit of a time of peace where people lived carefree and serene, where music was the rythm of their daily lives.

Under the Radar presents young contemporary artists working from inside Iran in contrast with exhibitions held for Iranian artists in the diaspora. The selected artists approach the blank paper with different motives and techniques. Through their works a complex relation emerges between the individual and the 'outside'. 

Rasha Shammas’s newest project, EmBODYments is the first artistic photography project of its kind in the Middle East.  It showcases black & white portraits of over 150 Lebanese people who have one thing in common: they all have tattoos of various styles and sizes.  Everyday individuals from all walks of life, professions and religions are captured revealing aspects of themselves, their characters and their fantasies.

Counting Thoughts is an interdisciplinary group show curated by Mayssa Fattouh that invites female artists of different nationalities to present works that reflect their thoughts on their own womanhood in a free context. Keeping in mind that the association to culturally specific shows comes with the burden of stereotypes, Counting Thoughts aims at taking an approach that goes beyond direct gender attribution.

Soft Sculpture investigates alternative aspects of the traditional practice, reintroducing this art through video, photography and new media. In relation to the body and the sanctity of the intimate, both the work and one’s perception of the work are reshaped into an alternate reality.This shift beckons the participants to reconsider pre-existing notions by launching them on a personal journey of self discovery and reflection, with no limitation but one’s imagination.

Desires, Nightmares and dreams is a group exhibition bringing together six lebanese and international artists with various styles, techniques and practices. The theme of the show pertains to the inner world of the artist's mind and perspective of the self in response to tempestuous surroundings.

In Loving Memory solo show by Benoit Debbane marks a new phase in the artist’s work, where he explores new techniques, adapting his street art influences to painting, and where textures and layering become more present. The artist depicts a series of satirical and cliché portraits of women, who probably were part of his life, using a contrast of dark colors and rough brush strokes, and a three tone red-black-white palette.

Burkhard's photographs capture the most intimate details or embrace the iimmensity of the world. WIth his monumental formats, he focuses without artifice the essence that escapes us while affirming the place of the image in space, its role as agitator of our conscience. In his landscapes, the scale is impossible to determine; the size of the subject does not matter, only their power to stimulate. 

Youmna Habbouche’s exhibition consists of several series of triptychs, illustrating various details of the artist’s daily life and the world around her. Her subjects include scenes of everyday life in Lebanon (and other places), natural landscapes, urban views, portraits, popular manifestations, and others…

Free Reign: Blank to Basics is a drawing and illustration challenge that aims to investigate the approach of “the sketch” with a specific outlook on its very nature: raw thoughts and pure paper. It is about rooting the act of drawing, in order to restore its primal, back to basics and honest characteristics while exploring the contrast and power of a pencil and/or ink on paper. 

Une femme est allongée. Telle une nymphe émergeant d’une toile maniériste de la haute renaissance, elle se débat, résignée : Son corps, ses membres et les voiles qui s’en prolongent, sont tiraillés par une force obscure et immuable. Ce n’est pas un combat, c’est une capitulation.

Pauses and plays, travelling of the body and mind, a continuous punctuation of movements and experiences embodied in the artist's life is released in her paintings. Glöerfelt's work exhales inner turmoil through rhythms and strokes, colours and sentences, on canvas; it is the intimate revealed.