Staying on top

Beirut’s perennial claim to be the capital of art in the Arab world is facing competition. Qatar’s ‘Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art’, the Saadiyat Cultural District in Abu Dhabi planning for the inaugurations for local branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim in 2015 and 2017, respectively, and the art fairs of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, could be seen as a surge of aesthetic appreciation in the Gulf, where there is also the money to back it up. However, “You cannot buy culture,” claims Laure D’Hauteville, the creator and organizer of the Beirut Art Fair (BAF), who believes Beirut will always be the Arab world’s art capital. Having organized the Abu Dhabi art fair in 2005 and 2006, D’Hauteville says, “The majority of the attendees there were either Lebanese or foreign. The locals have the money indeed, but they do not have the education or background in art.” D’Hauteville said