BEIRUT.- Agial Art Gallery opened “A Search for the Fantastic: The Doche, Séraphim and Barrage Group" on Thursday, 21 July.

A flashback to modern Lebanon of the 60s and 70s, pre-war Beirut, through this exhibition linking the works of a group of 3 avant-garde artists friends, Georges Doche, Juliana Séraphim and Fadi Barrage who have disappeared and been lost over time...

This project aims to create an identity for three Lebanese avant-garde artists and bring them together under the same school by highlighting the influence of the imaginary and the fantastic on their work.

The exhibition highlights the artistic journey of Georges Doche (1940-2018), Juliana Séraphim (1934-2005) and Fadi Barrage (1940-1988) through a selection of 25 works, and therefore represents a tribute and a revelation of their friendship. The various works proposed will sail around the notion of dreamlike, moreover, vestiges of their common past will reinforce the coherence of the works as the history that they shared together.

These artists appealed to the fantastic and the marvellous, a world of their own, in order to express their aspirations rather greater than those of the world in which they lived. By each adopting their own style, the 3 artists have used art to escape the reality of a country as beautiful as it is difficult to accept their free spirit.

The red thread of this exhibition is the world of dreams and the fantastic in Lebanon in the 60s and 70s. However, I dwell on the search for the fantastic and seek through this exhibition to highlight the revolution of these artists against moral and even sexual social taboos, their attempt to overcome contradictions through their paintings and even also to rediscover a part of the unconscious man-son that tends to be masked by authority, order and traditional values. Their works will aim to show the public their desire to liberate the spirit, the man and even the art as well as their dream of a better society where the passions of each individual, freed from all repression, harmonize for the good of all ; a world where art, freedom and love reign.
This exhibition is aimed at a very wide audience of the Lebanese population, the sole purpose being to promote a rediscovery of the past through the dreamy eyes of these artists who could easily take the public into the world of wonders. - Lawra Doche Saadé (Curator)