RectoVerso Installation Art Museum

1-  The Project

We aim to create a large art center and venue specialized in preserving, promoting, documenting and exhibiting installation art in Lebanon.

2-  The Need

Since the early eighties, Lebanon witnessed a growing production of installation art. However, no effort until now has been made to preserve this country’s heritage in installation art, which is being dispersed and forgotten. Nor has there been a proper space for exhibiting this mode of visual expression permanently. 

3-  Objectives

The aim of the RectoVerso Museum is to safeguard installation pieces made in Lebanon and make them accessible indefinitely to the present and future generations.

Its objective is to acquire, protect, preserve, promote and document the installation method of aesthetic expression, to raise awareness and to encourage participation in this field by implementing periodic programs of exhibitions and cultural activities.

Through its permanent collection and exhibitions the museum will serve as a dynamic venue for creativity, appreciation and outreach. Its database of installation artworks exhibited in Lebanon and its publications will document the creativity in this field.

4- Exhibitions

Its permanent exhibition will consist of art works acquired, donated or bequeathed to the Museum by artists and collectors. Artworks on loan will also be preserved and exhibited periodically.

 5-  The Venue

A spacious hangar, 1450 square meters in area, measuring 23×60 meters. Its ceiling is 6 meters high on the sides and 7,30 meters in the centre. It is located in ALITA (casa of Jbail), a real- estate project of a special character, which can be reached from Nahr Ibrahim, on the way from Beirut to Byblos, 7.5 kilometres on the road to Qartaba, and 600 meters above sea level  (www.alitatown.com).

6-  The Initiator

RectoVerso Library, an offshoot of Fine Arts Publishing, which is a publishing house dedicated to preserving the plastic arts in Lebanon in paper and digital form. Their aim has been pursued through the following means:

a)    Have published twenty art books in Arabic, English and French about Lebanese plastic art and artists in Lebanon.  (www.fineartspublishing.com)

b)  RectoVerso Library/Bookshop on Monot Street- is a public library specialized in Lebanese art books. It has more than nine hundred titles on its shelves. It is working now on a website to make public its database of art book titles which is already published in booklet form. (www.rectoversolibrary.com)

c)   Monot Street Book Market invites second hand book-sellers and private individuals to sell their books in a festive atmosphere in the first Saturday of every month.

d)   Beirut Art Book Fair was held at UNESCO Palace in Beirut for the first two years and at the Beirut Souks in its third edition. Publishers, artists, galleries, museums and universities, from Lebanon and abroad participate in this fair.  (www.beirutartbookfair.com)

 

7-  Establishment

For the coming few months, the initiator will ask artists to donate or loan artworks to the museum to prove the viability of the project. In the meantime, the legal structure of the museum as a non-profit organization will be established. In this capacity, funds will be solicited, the venue will be renovated, and the personnel structure of the museum will be established.

INTERNAL REGULATIONS

1- Conservation

Maintain a high standard of curatorial work and scholarship. It will seek cooperation with regional and extra-regional similar organizations

2- Scholarship

Artworks on display and not in public view, as well as the records associated with them are made available for study as space permits, by appointment and during regular published hours

3- Development

Museum’s facilities will be enhanced and its collection increased by developing strategies for acquiring donations, grants and gifts. The Museum will accept artworks of quality in any mode of aesthetic expression. Acknowledgement of gifts and bequests will be done immediately on receipt.

 

4- Loans

Loans for exhibitions are considered as to the condition of the work, donor’s restriction, physical condition at the borrowing institution and the demands of transport. Judgment must be guided by the primary objectives of the continued physical integrity and safety of the collection and its scholarly purpose. Loans must be consistent with the long-term conservation of the work.

5- Intellectual Responsibility

Exhibitions may address any issue in condition it must be approached objectively and without prejudice. No discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, gender, marital status, religion, creed, ancestry, national and ethnic origin, sexual orientation and physical and mental handicap

6- Title to Artworks

Ideally, title to the artwork will include all rights and interests, including copyright, patent, trademark and trade name. Restrictions in intellectual rights must be considered and documented. The museum will request assignment of copyright by inserting a statement in the receipt of work.

7- Records

Timely and accurate record of the museum collection as well as all art installations done in Lebanon will be maintained. The Museum’s database will show images of the artwork and its medium, dimensions, markings, condition and description.

It will also include all original record of the work; its history, where its has been exhibited, invitation cards, catalogues and what has been written about it. A number will be given to each artwork to identify the work and the artist