By Alex Liddington-Cox “I don’t expect the business to flourish. I’m not doing it for that actually. I’m just doing it to try as much as I can to slow down things the way they are going.” Art contemporain Fady Mogabgab could just as easily be referring to the Lebanese economy as he sits in his newly opened etching gallery in Gemmayzeh. But he’s having a dig at the art world. “I respect the conceptual bullshit. But one in a million is very, very smart and the others are just followers,” said Mogabgab. Even non-art lovers are aware the focus on concept in the contemporary art has gone too far. But there’s another kind of “bullshit,” says Mogabgab, that has infected Lebanese art specifically. It’s the obsession with Lebanon’s history of war. “A lot of people are using this as a marketing tool. Rich countries would like to see our art scene like that,” he says, adding that when one particular photographer who’s made a name for himself internationally comes to Beirut, it’s only an elite crowd that comes to hear him speak. “There is a certain elite that pretends, but…
