The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad Art Museum) is pleased to share that the first American survey of artist Nabil Kanso will open at the MSU Broad Art Museum on February 15, 2025. Nabil Kanso: Echoes of War follows the artist Nabil Kanso’s endeavor to create awareness about historical events and show solidarity with those suffering globally.
Born in Lebanon in 1940, Kanso left Beirut to study in London before moving to New York to pursue a career as an artist in 1966. While Kanso frequently traveled back to his family home in Beirut, the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 sparked a series of events that prompted him to permanently resettle outside Lebanon. After moving from New York to North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana, he eventually settled in Atlanta, Georgia. There, he found a new tudio space that allowed him to work on a larger scale. He painted prolifically and read broadly about history, literature, and politics until his untimely passing in 2019.
“It has been immensely rewarding and thought-provoking to learn about Kanso’s work in preparation for this exhibition,” said Dr. Rachel Winter, Assistant Curator at the MSU Broad Art Museum and curator of Echoes of War. “Kanso often painted about current events globally, and the themes in his work very much resonate with our current moment. Kanso has long been overlooked by art historians and curators, much like many artists of his generation, and I am very grateful to Kanso’s children Danny Kanso and Lilly Kanso for sharing their father’s work with me and partnering with me on this project.”
The artist’s monumental, mural-like paintings consider the experience of war across key historical moments. Throughout his practice, Kanso’s work addressed topics spanning the history of the United States, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, apartheid in South Africa, and mass incarceration in the US. This exhibition focuses on Kanso’s works related to historical events in the region referred to as the Middle East, including the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990), the Iraq War (2003), and the Syrian Refugee Crisis (2011–present). Collectively, Kanso’s paintings illustrate that these experiences of conflict are often shared across history, much like the factors that spark conflict reoccur over time. By learning about these important moments, Kanso provides us as viewers the opportunity to think about how to imagine a future free of conflict.
“Here at the MSU Broad Art Museum we feel it is important, necessary even, to not turn away from the difficult realities and circumstances that people face the world over, past and presently. The work of Nabil Kanso reminds us of the significance of bearing witness to the traumas of others,” offered Steven L. Bridges, Interim Director of the MSU Broad Art Museum. “In the end, Kanso’s work is a call for the recognition of our shared humanity and our shared responsibility to one another—a message we need today more than ever.”
Press release from the MSU Broad Art Museum
Image: Nabil Kanso. Scorching Sparks from the series Lebanon. 1983. Image courtesy of the Nabil Kanso Estate
