By Hook or By Crook

A curatorial project presenting unapproved replicas of artworks by Luis Camnitzer, Martin Soto Climent, Jason Dodge, Jimmie Durham, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Claire Fontaine, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Roni Horn, Sanja Iveković, Diego Leclery, Ghassan Mashala, Roman Ondak, Gabriel Orozco, Amalia Pica, Cesare Pietroiusti, Pope.L, Wilfredo Prieto, Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, Ugo Rondinone, Rana Siegel, Reena Spaulings, Mladen Stilinović, and Lawrence Weiner

This exhibition presents an array of prominent international artists. For nearly all, it represents their debut in Lebanon. Blurring the line between artist and curator, the works were reproduced using local materials from street markets in Beirut, and exhibited in Haret Hreik, a working-class neighborhood. Portable, ephemeral, or otherwise modest, these works can in theory be made by many people in many places, simultaneously and repeatedly, without the artists needing to be present and with no appreciable loss of quality. This approach is plumbed for its implications regarding cultural access within the Lebanese context, where a liberal economy and upwardly mobile diaspora have not given way to an international art collection of note. At once commentary and catalyst, the exhibition challenges familiar proprietary notions, probing the viewer to imagine a more fluid and inclusive cultural economy. The obvious questions arise: is it an exact copy or a new work?