Bernard Khoury, Luca Molinari and Georges Arbid: local heroes

Conversation with Luca Molinari and Georges Arbid

“Local heroes are not superheroes. They are the valiant mercenaries who protect my grounds. I searched for them here and everywhere; from the cities of the collapsing Arab nations to those where the cathedrals were white. Those bitter territories are the marvelous and playful grounds on which I construct

My optimism, the last enclaves where meaningful convalescences are still possible. Local heroes are rooted in very specific political grounds. They are not the protected citizens of any comfortable nation. They own the streets that others walk through cautiously. They do not belong to any familiar place. Their places escape all consensual definitions of territory. They do not fit in the undisputed and often simplified histories of their time. They are the proud romantics who fearlessly resist the cynicism of the wise. The stories I tell do not frame any protagonist, any situation, or any architectural act in any sort of tangible or immutable definitions. I am not interested in such definitions as much as I am not interested in the theoretical postures that produce them. In my worlds of uncontrolled dissonance, I build alliances. Those are often contradictory ones. My heroes are not all cut from the same cloth. As my stories unfold; I remain in the hope that I will not be afflicted with the censure of unscrupulous fraudulence.”

Beirut art center will host the book launch ceremony for Bernard Khoury’s local heroes followed by a conversation with Luca Molinari and Georges Arbid.