Beirut

Hale Tenger creates meditative atmospheres in which sound plays a musical, fictional and narrative role. For Beirut, the artist recorded fixed-frame shots of the façade of the Saint George’s Hotel in Beirut, near which a bomb had exploded in 2005, killing Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri. Glamorous symbol of the city’s golden age, the hotel had fallen into ruin during the Civil War. In registering the hypnotic movement of the ghostly white curtains the artist offers a contrast between the serenity of the daylight hours and the anxiety of night, accentuated by a soundtrack of alarms and explosions.