Work: The Return, 2023

The Return, 2023 

The Return, 2023

The Return is an immersive installation that investigates the journey of a marble sculpture, dated ca. 360 B.C. that was unearthed during the excavation of the temple of Eshmun in Saida in July 1967. The marble piece depicting a Bull’s Head, discovered by French archeologist and Ancient Near East specialist Maurice Dunand, spent millennia buried and undisturbed, but within the timespan of half a century, between 1967 and 2017, it moved from Saida to Byblos, disappeared for over three decades, reappeared in Colorado USA and was ultimately hidden in plain sight, within a display in the Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Fifty years after it emerged back, a court case to establish its rightful owner brought it to the spotlight.

Rayyane Tabet, The Return: 1996 – 2005, 2023, Two wallpapers, collages, and two modified car lights sculptures, Variable dimensions, Exhibition view Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut 2023