Walid Sadek

Walid Sadek (born in Beirut, Lebanon, 1966) is a Lebanese artist and writer. He is a professor at the Department of Fine Arts and Art History of the American University of Beirut, and held its chairmanship from 2017 to date.

Life and work Walid Sadek uses poetic and metaphoric language to evoke on post war Lebanon. In 1999, he produced Bigger than Picasso a tiny and unexpected book using word and image to criticize a political situation in the country.

Sadek, who has regularly collaborated with Beirut-based artist centre Ashkal Alwan, has participated in numerous exhibitions and events worldwide. In 2010, he presented his first solo exhibition at the Beirut Art Center. He was guest editor of the academic journal Third Text on issue 117, July 2012, titled "Not, Not Arab".

Publications Fi annani akbar min Picasso (bigger than Picasso), (Beirut, Ayloul Festival, 1999) Al-Kasal [Indolence] with Bilal Khbeiz (Beirut: The 3rd World, 1999) The Ruin to Come, Essays from a protracted war (Motto Books, Taipei Biennale, 2016) Collected essays, written in Beirut over a period of 10 years between 2006 and 2016, look at the conditions of living under a temporality theorized as the "protracted now" of a civil war, one structurally capable of perpetuating the conditions of its own dominance. How to speak dead, (Kayfa ta, 2025)

Selected exhibitions Solo exhibitions Place at Last Walid Sadek, Beirut Art Center, 2010 Walid Sadek '"On the labour of missing", Galerie Tanit, Beirut, 2012

Group exhibitions Ashkal Alwan – Hamra Street Project, Beirut, 2000 Contemporary Arab Representations, Beirut/Lebanon, Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2002 Home Works III – A Forum of Cultural Practices, Beirut, 2005 Out of Beirut, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, 2006 Foreword, Pavilion of Lebanon, 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007 Home Works IV, Galerie Sfeir Semler, Beirut, 2008 Lebanon Now, Darat al Funun, Amman, 2008 The 4th Auckland Triennial, Auckland, 2010 Sharjah Biennial 10: Plot for a Biennial, Sharjah, 2011 Seeing is Believing, KW Berlin, 2011 Home Works 6 Exhibition, Artheum, Beirut, 2013 Unnamed exhibition with Gheith Al-Amine, Aissa Deebi, Bassam Kahwagi, Jacko Restikian and Shawki Youssef, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, 2014