Modern art, antiques on show at cube museum
Print Edition
AT a new private museum in Lebanon, a contemporary sculpture of a mortar missile is displayed alongside millenia-old statues retrieved from the bottom of the sea. Named after the Mesopotamian god of wisdom, the Nabu Museum opened in late September to showcase the cultural wealth of an ancient region devastated by conflict.
Its inaugural exhibition includes 60 contemporary works, as well as around 400 antiquities from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Yemen.
Next to a private beach in the village of El-Heri in Lebanon’s north, the museum’s collection sits in an impressive futuristic cube of steel, coated with a rusty orange patina.
A tall glass opening in the metal and concrete structure provides a view straight through the museum’s interior and out to the sea. Designed by Iraqi artists, the museum for the first time opens up the private art and antiquities collections of wealthy businessmen to the public for free.
Visitors can see Lebanese artist Saliba Douaihy’s abstract landscape paintings, one largely red, the other bright blue. They can also admire terracotta statues harking back to the Phoenician period found during marine excavations off the southern coast of Lebanon.
The museum’s founders — two Lebanese and a Syrian — want it to be a beacon of hope in a region scarred by conflict and the brutality of jihadists.
“Nabu is the god of writing and wisdom. Not the god of war,” says Lebanese co-founder Jawad Adra.
But the works on show only represent a fraction of its founders’ private collections, and there are plans to switch the exhibits every few months.
Adra’s personal collection includes 2,000 items from the Levant and Mesopotamia regions, according to the exhibition’s catalogue.
In Lebanon, a 2016 law demands all private owners of antiquities register their items with the ministry as part of its efforts to combat illegal trafficking.
In recent years, part of the region’s cultural heritage has been damaged, destroyed or looted by armed groups including jihadists.
The Islamic State group in particular swept across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, wrecking countless historical sites in territory it controlled.
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