The London-based Iraqi artist Dia Azzawi has donated a major work to a charity auction raising funds for displaced families in Beirut and southern Lebanon. ‘Hold Beirut’, organised by the art consultancy Artse, includes works by 30 artists from the Arab world and runs from 28-31 July on the online marketplace Artscoops. All of the proceeds will be donated to the Lebanese Red Cross and the Beirut-based non-profit Beit El Baraka to support their emergency humanitarian response to the current crisis in Lebanon.
Since 2 March, hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have escalated, leading to military strikes and Israel's ground invasion in southern Lebanon, killing hundreds of people and leaving more than one million people displaced, according to the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration. “Lebanon is going through another deeply painful period, with families displaced from Beirut and the South and many people are left without stable shelter or certainty about what comes next,” says Cynthia Khoury, the founder of Artse. “Today many families have begun returning to the South, but they are returning to damaged villages, to homes and livelihoods that will take years to rebuild.”
The auction brings together donated works by artists from Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, Palestine, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Syria, including Taher Jaoui, Charles Khoury and Katya Traboulsi. Estimates for the works range from $150 to $30,000, with the auction expected to raise between $100,000 to $160,000 in total.
Khoury personally reached out to each of the participating artists. Azzawi, who she first met at an edition of Art Dubai, is one of the most important figures in modern Arab art, and a favourite artist of Khoury's. He has donated a woodcut on paper titled Pursuit from Afar (2018-19), which “unfolds across three panels, its fragmented figures carrying a sense of tension, distance, and collective struggle”, according to an Instagram post by Artse. The work is estimated to achieve between $25,000 to $30,000. “[Azzawi’s] presence in this auction means something beyond the estimate,” Khoury says. “Displacement has been at the centre of his work for half a century, from [the 1982 Beirut massacre] Sabra and Shatila onward, so a work of his in an auction for displaced families in Lebanon feels like a continuation of what his art has always stood for.”
