This publication accompanies Akram Zaatari’s exhibition Father and Son at Thomas Dane Gallery in Naples (23 April-20 July 2024).

Born in Saida, South Lebanon in 1966, Zaatari has played an instrumental role in shaping Beirut’s contemporary art scene. Working across various media to produce films, videos, books, and photographic installations, his practice excavates historical, archaeological, and archival material to uncover and revive that which has been lost, hidden, or obscured.

In Father and Son, Zaatari attends to the issues of restitution and restoration in physical and metaphorical terms. Enacting its title, the exhibition reunites two Phoenician Kings, Tabnit I and his son Eshmunazar II, transcending the distance between the display of their sarcophagi in Istanbul and Paris through two installations, or “moments”. Alongside this project, the exhibition presents works that recreate objects that have either been lost or were never produced but exist in photographic or descriptive traces. These include a reconstruction in marble of a photographic nude from 1920s Beirut and a series of ten satin and linen quilts based on traditional Lebanese patterns photographed in the 1950s. Further, Zaatari’s YM series is scattered throughout the exhibition, with each ink painting representing a map of the Mediterranean Sea, a site of cultural exchange, trade, immigration, and violence.

The publication features texts by Akram Zaatari, which elucidate each work in the exhibition and offer insight into the expansive nature of his research practice, through which the artist restores connections and narratives lost over time.