Despite the ongoing uncertainty and war in her home country of Lebanon, Joumana Asseily, founder of Beirut-based Marfa’ Projects, returned to Frieze London, showing a solo presentation of mixed media works by French-Lebanese artist Stéphanie Saadé in the fair’s Focus section.

While the gallery in Beirut remains closed for safety reasons, Frieze London provides another avenue for its to showcase its artists and represent the wealth of the cultural scene to the global art community.

One work on view by Saadé titled “Geographical Coordinates” (2023) is made with used clothes and embroidery and reflects the geographical coordinates of the six apartments inhabited by the artist since the Beirut Port Explosion in 2020. They are embroidered on clothes acquired and worn by her after she departed Lebanon. The work is yet another reflection of the recent years of social, financial and violent upheaval that have devasted Lebanon and the Lebanese people.

Marfa’ gallery will also participate in Art Basel Paris, where it will present works by Lebanese artists Seta Manoukian and Paola Yacoub. 

Also showing from Lebanon is Sfeir-Semler Gallery. Founded by Andrée Sfeir-Semler and a regular participant at Frieze, the gallery is showing works by artists including Dineo Seshee Bopape (Raisible dreaming: flowers and light, flowers and light, 2023) and Khalil Rabah (Relocation: Among other things, 2018-23), among others. 

While the gallery remains closed in Beirut, Sfeir-Semler’s other gallery in Hamburg, Germany is being used for storage of artworks. Sfeir-Semler told The Art Newspaper that she hopes to reopen the Beirut gallery after the war has ended with a show of works by Walid Raad. 

When that will be, no one knows, and for the time being, Lebanese gallerists have founded refuge abroad. 

In Frieze Masters, another Lebanese artist, Nabil Nahas, is shown through the Dubai-based gallery Lawrie Shabibi.

The solo presentation centres on three monumental panels that were on a long-term loan to the Yale Chemistry Department made in 1973 while Nahas was still an MFA student at the university. Until this showing, they were only ever viewable at Yale. The presentation at Frieze Masters marks the first time they are being shown to the broader public. 

They are also forerunners of several works by Nahas that are now in important international institutions, including the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern, and the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, UAE. 

Waving the flag for Saudi Arabia is ATHR Gallery, one of the Kingdom’s foremost galleries for modern and contemporary Saudi art. The presentation, titled “Nafs,” presents the work of Sara Abdu, Nasser AlSalem, Dana Awartani, and Ayman Yossri Daydban, focused on themes revolving around the the spiritual and human elements found in Islamic Art.

Among the highlights is Abdu’s newly commissioned embroidery work for Frieze London exploring themes of self, memory, and mortality using soap structures and henna alongside a showing of several of her soundscapes.

Also on view is Ayman Yossri Daydban’s The Line, a work deconstructing a site-specific installation to examine notions of connection and alienation, showcasing how identity is negotiated within the frameworks of land and power.

There’s also Nasser AlSalem’s minimalist sculpture incorporating a technique that challenges traditional Islamic calligraphy by incorporating modern with traditional phrases to re-contextual them into unconventional mixed-media forms. Lastly, Dana Awartani’s textile and sculptural works show how she explores violence against Arab architecture during the present and past moments of upheaval. The works she is showing symbolise healing while also serving to document the destruction.

And from Cairo is Gypsum Gallery presenting a solo presentation at Frieze London in the fair’s Focus section highlighting a series of new paintings by Greek-Swiss artist Dimitra Charamandas that provide soothing natural scenes as way to explore a sense of quiet resilience through abstract natural and fluid forms — a way perhaps during these challenging present times to escape and find strength in the beauty and power of nature.