OF CHILDREN, JOY AND FREEDOM

How do you meet, as a curator, a fascinating artist?

Through another one.

It was an exceptionally talented Lebanese artist, Ayman Baalbaki, who one day introduced me to his Palestinian friend, spiritual brother and artistic mate. Abdul Rahman Katanani was then, and is still now, working in the refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, where he was born in 1983 – a year after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the notorious massacre that killed over two thousand Palestinians, including women and children, in that camp. His grandparents came to Lebanon from Jaffa, in 1948. So, he was born out of, and with, a strong desire to live, to love and to create.

Of course, I had already seen the works of Abdul Rahman Katanani exhibited at the French Institute in Beirut, and later in several shows in Saleh Barakat’s gallery, and Dar El-Nimer foundation in Beirut. But he was already an artist even before 2008, when he received the young artist prize during the Salon d’Automne held at the Sursock Museum. His first works of art were products of his teen years, cartoons and graffiti murals, executed in collaboration with friends in the camps, encouraging communal art. They were inspired by the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali, who was killed in London in 1987, when I was the artistic director of Kufa Gallery. I remember clearly that dramatic event, since we organised, with the help of Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi, an exhibition in al-Ali’s memory with his original works, lent by his family.

So, I was very keen to see Katanani in his studio, in the camp. The most striking impression upon meeting him for the first time is his refined beauty, inherent elegance, his great sense of humour, his laughter, his lightness, his openness, despite the surroundings: a camp, and a host country, in political, moral and financial bankruptcy.

I could not believe that – despite his having so much talent, success, and enjoying the admiration of other artists and the public –he was still living and working in a disused and derelict hospital, destroyed during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where later each room was occupied by a family. Yet life and laughter were buzzing in the stairwells, with children playing all around, shouting with joy, playing with improvised kites, used car tyres… Joy, serenity and beauty, this is the combination of feelings that hits you when you meet the artist and get introduced to his mother. They both