About

Founded by Andrée Sfeir-Semler in 1985, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, with spaces in Beirut, Lebanon and Hamburg, Germany, concentrates on international contemporary art with an emphasis on conceptual and minimal art. For the last fifteen years, the gallery has been at the cutting edge of art production in the Arab World, nurturing a unique cross-cultural link between Western and Middle Eastern contemporary art practices.

It has taken on an integral role in establishing and developing the careers of key artists from the Arab world such as Walid Raad, Akram Zaatari, Wael Shawky, or Etel Adnan, launching pioneer solo exhibitions, gaining global exposure through participation in international biennials and exhibitions, and facilitating acquisitions by major museums around the world. The gallery simultaneously nurtures a younger generation of artists, including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Mounira al Solh and Rayyane Tabet for example, thus expanding its program and its history of innovation. In addition, the gallery’s roster includes some of the pillars of the Arab modern period such as MARWAN, Youssef Abdelké and Aref el Rayess, as well as covering the socio· politically charged works of contemporary artists such as Yto Barrada, Taysir Batniji, Khalil Rabah, Rabih Mroué or Marwan Rechmaoui.

The gallery continues to present its artists to global audiences, presenting ambitious solo shows in its Beirut space, participating in major art fairs around the world and collaborating internationally to realize complex and ambitious projects. Those include most recently: the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), the Sharjah Biennial 14 (2019), the 10th Berlin Biennial (2018), Manifesta 12 Palermo (2018), the 8th Gwangju Biennial (2018) or dOCUMENTA 14 (2017). It also regularly contributes to notable museum shows, including the solo exhibitions of Yto Barrada at Mathaf, Doha (2020), Walid Raad at Moderna Museet (2020) and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2019), Etel Adnan at MUDAM, Luxembourg (2019) and SFMoMA, San Francisco (2018), Mounira. Al Solh at Mathaf, Doha and the Art lnstitute of Chicago (both 2018), Marwan Rechmaoui at Bonnefantenmuseum (2019), Rayyane Tabet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019) and the Louvre, Paris (2019), Akram Zaatari at Sharjah Art Foundation (2019), at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (2018) and Kunstsammlung NRW, K21 Ständehaus, Düsseldorf (2017), and Wael Shawky at MoMA PS1 (2015).