Apollo's Jonathan McAloon reviews Alfred Basbous, Modernist Pioneer, the 2017 London exhibition of the Lebanese sculptor, an artist Tabari has gone on to present in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
McAloon begins with Basbous's visit to Henry Moore's studio in 1972, when he saw how strongly Britain supported public sculpture and urged his own government to follow. By then he had studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and exhibited at the Musée Rodin. With his brothers he turned his home village of Rachana into an open air sculpture park, now recognised by UNESCO.
The review, written on the London exhibition at Sophia Contemporary Gallery, finds the spirit of Brancusi in elongated bronzes such as Femme Flamme (1985) and Woman Figure (1992). Phoenician Head (2003) draws on Lebanon's ancient roots, while Torse (1970) and the marble Woman Nude (2001) have a weighty, primal presence. McAloon dwells on Profile (2004), whose face reveals a harp shaped void as you walk around it, and on Syrene (1985), caught between human and bird. He notes that Basbous often remade works decades later in new materials and sizes.
The London show was organised by Sophia Contemporary. Tabari has since presented Basbous in Figurative to Abstraction in Dubai in 2021 and, with the Alfred Basbous Museum, at Abu Dhabi Art 2023.