In the eighteenth season of Christie’s art auctions in Dubai, held in 2015, the painting “The Tower of Babel” (2005) by the Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki achieved a record price, after it was sold for $485,000. At that time, the deal attracted some attention as the selling price reached three Double its rating by the house. The wide difference between the indicative evaluation price and the actual selling price is not a rare occurrence, especially since art pricing is generally a cloudy process and is more like shooting in the dark in an emerging art market like the Middle East. The sudden difference in price may indicate a jump in the reputation of a particular artist or work, or it may make this jump. On the other hand, it may indicate a miscalculation on the part of the auction house and the art agents. In both cases, the difference remains higher, as in our example, a matter that calls for celebration by the parties. all of them.
Once again, Baalbaki’s name is associated with Christie’s and its poor judgment in the headlines of artistic news, after the house withdrew two works by the artist that were scheduled to be sold in its auction of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern arts at its headquarters in London on the ninth of this month. One of the two paintings is titled “The Masked One” (2012), which is a portrait of the face of a man masked with a keffiyeh, with only his eyes visible. The second painting, entitled “Anonymous” (2011-2018), is a portrait of a face covered with a black gas mask, and on its forehead is a red band with “rebels” written on it in white. The house decided to block the two paintings after receiving several complaints about them, linking them to “Islamic extremism.” One of the house’s officials admits in his statements to the media that there is a “misunderstanding” of the subject of the two works, but he adds: “In light of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, it can be misunderstood, as if it depicts Islamic resistance fighters, by anyone who is not familiar with the history of the region.” “.
The date of October 7 casts a heavy shadow over the Arab presence in Western cultural and artistic fields. Christie’s, which is concerned with sales more than anything, is offering to sell the two paintings outside the auction. It is not really interested in “blocking or imposing censorship on one of the most important Middle Eastern artists,” as the owner of the two paintings accused them. The goal is to complete the sale anyway, with the least amount of inconvenience. The house’s evaluation experts realize that the two paintings reflect a central theme of Baalbaki, who was born in the year the Lebanese Civil War began, and who is preoccupied with themes of fighting, displacement, and destruction. Covered faces, unknown figures, ruined buildings, and the ruins of cities are the themes that he repeated time after time throughout his artistic career. The painting “The Masked Man” referred to is one in a long series of portraits of figures with covered faces drawn by Baalbaki, which became a distinctive imprint of his style. “The Masked One” was most likely inspired by the imagination and memory of the Lebanese Civil War, and is not directly related to the war taking place in Gaza today. As for the second painting, it is completely far from this context, as it refers Baalbaki to the Tahrir Square protesters in the Egyptian revolution.
There is a sense of heroism in Baalbaki’s masked faces, and there is also a certain nostalgia towards the ruins that he draws, and perhaps those faces and demolished buildings are the same thing. For Baalbaki, art is not an image of reality, but rather a tool for survival, and a prophecy about the almost eternal cycle of violence in our region. Undoubtedly, Christie’s experts are familiar with these details and backgrounds, and perhaps the works of Baalbaki alone, who is truly the artist of our contemporary devastation, are the most appropriate to display and contemplate today against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza. However, the house, under the pretext of avoiding misunderstandings driven by lack of knowledge, removed the two paintings from the walls of its London hall. A keffiyeh, a masked face, and an Arab artist at this time is a mixture that brings unnecessary headaches, and the easy solution is to make deals in the back offices, away from the eyes of the public, where it is obscured. The masked face again.
