The following Q&A appeared in Modern Painters’ August issue, which profiles the world’s top galleries of 2016. ARTINFO will be publishing the articles from this issue over the next few days. Click here to see related stories from the issue. To find all our coverage of the 500 Best Galleries Worldwide, as well as ARTINFO’s top picks for the best in visual arts, architecture and design, performing arts, lifestyle, and culture and travel, visit our Top Lists page.Best Galleries // Middle EastSfeir-Semler Gallery | Beirut, Lebanon, and Hamburg, GermanyBased in Germany since the mid 1980s, with a second location founded in Beirut in 2005, Sfeir-Semler is known for its strong roster of contemporary artists from the Arab world—as well as showing a handful of European and American Conceptualists—including Walid Raad, Yto Barrada, Mounira Al Solh, Hans Haacke, Khalil Rabah, Rayyane Tabet, and Robert Barry. We spoke with Andrée Sfeir-Semler about the roles of the gallery’s two spaces and how political shifts in Lebanon have affected the Beirut contemporary art scene.How did Sfeir-Semler’s Beirut space come to be?The gallery first opened in 1985, in Kiel, Germany, and we moved to Hamburg in 1998. At the beginning of the 2000s, we started working with a new generation of artists from the Arab world, such as Walid Raad, Akram Zaatari, Rabih Mroué, and Marwan Rechmaoui, who had just emerged from the civil war in Lebanon. It was a time when Beirut was booming: The Lebanese who left during the war were coming back, everyone was investing in the city, the budding art scene was taking shape. It was then that we decided to open a space in Beirut. It would be the first gallery of this scale—the first white cube to show contemporary art in the whole region. We opened in April 2005, just two months after the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri and the “Cedar Revolution” changed everything in the country. Around 1,800 people attended the opening!You have locations in both Beirut and Hamburg. What’s the relationship between the two spaces?Bridging East and West is always a very complicated balance. We do the same program in both places for different reasons: In Hamburg and at international art fairs, we introduce contemporary Arab art to a Western public, and in Beirut, we mirror what is happening locally. While Beirut is our soil, we need Hamburg asour embassy. It is also our general quarters for practical issues, like customs, storage, communication, travel, and transport.What are some of the common threads among the artists
you represent?What I look for are subtle yet very powerful messages. All our artists have a conceptual approach, and they are not decorative. They usually aren’t very easy to place, but they have stories to tell, or an element, a shape, or a color to show in a very thoughtful, very complex way.Tell me a bit about the contemporary art scene in Beirut. What
are some of your favorite spaces or local artists?It’s nothing like it was 10 years ago. So many initiatives have excelled and changed so much in the city. Ashkal Alwan, Beirut Art Center, Metropolis, and 98 Weeks have programs that, at long last, make contemporary
art accessible. And the city is responding! I try to attend as many exhibitions and art activities in Beirut as possible. I do many studio visits, and I’ll follow the work of artists in the area closely before taking some of them on board.What do you like to do in the city that’s not art-related?Meeting with friends. Having a drink and some fish after a refreshing swim at Sporting Club Beach.Can you tell us a bit about the work in your
personal collection?In fact, I am not a collector: I am more an agent to my artists. I am more keen on placing the works in important museum collections than on keeping them. I collect
the leftovers from my own artists that no one wants!What upcoming exhibitions do you have planned?Our next show in Beirut is with Haig Aivazian. In Hamburg, we are opening a show with Mounira Al Solh in early September, followed by Etel Adnan.
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