Two paintings by the Lebanese visual artist Ayman Baalbaki were withdrawn from an auction organized by Christie’s in London, while a third painting by the same artist was kept.
This auction dedicated to modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art, which is held every six months, its curators say that they received complaints regarding the two Baalbaki paintings, and that these complaints might affect the company’s business and its relationship with its customers, so they preferred to withdraw it.
The two paintings that were excluded, and the demand for which increased tenfold, are part of the artist’s old collections, which were displayed for many years without raising any sensitivity. The first painting is large in size, and shows “The Masked One,” which is the face of a man wearing the red and white keffiyeh known and used in the Arab region, and wrapping it around his face. The price of this painting ranged between 100 and 150 thousand dollars. As for the second excluded painting, which aroused the feelings of the complainants, it bears the name “The Anonymous”, which is a picture of the face of a man wearing a gas mask, which is often worn by demonstrators all over the world, and even in Europe, to protect themselves from the gas used by the riot police. The man in the painting wore a red headband with “rebels” written on it in Arabic. It was small in size and was estimated to cost between 15,000 and 22,000 dollars.
The “The Masked” series dates back to 2012 and is remarkable for its beauty. It traveled to many countries, and Baalbaki stopped drawing it and moved on to other ideas, which raised its price, as well as the demand for it.
Baalbaki’s paintings were painted inspired by the Lebanese and Arab environment in the past decade, and the keffiyeh is worn by Arabs from Morocco to the Arabian Gulf, and it is not a religious, violent, or war symbol. As for the painting, whose owner covers his face with a gas mask, it is from the 2015 collection and was displayed at that time, inspired by the Arab Spring demonstrations and has no relation to Palestine and what is happening today.
The types of pressures faced by visual artists sympathetic to Palestine are varied, “among them is threatening them to reduce the prices of their paintings, or to stop buying from them, even though fine art is the most peaceful form of expression.”
As for the third painting by Baalbaki, which was kept at the auction and will be offered for sale, it is abstract and represents burnt flags. It is not clear what these flags are, or what country they are.
The Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki was born in 1975 from an artistic family. His father and uncle worked in painting. He began studying art in Beirut in 1994 until 1998, then completed his studies in Paris from 2001 to 2003. He became known for his large-scale paintings, in which he depicted fighters in a striking and influential way. He also focused in some of his works on destroyed buildings whose facades appear ancient and eroded. By war. His works were exhibited and widely known in the Arab world and Europe, and his name became famous. He participated in a striking installation work in the Lebanon Pavilion at the Venice Biennale two years ago.
