Wednesday, November 20, 2013

| Rise |

| Rise |

Ze have been questioning our identity all throughout history. Never have we ever found an accurate, common identity, one with to have a real sense of patriotism. We are instead always arguing, always asking ourselves, who are we really ?

But we do agree... what we can all agree on is that we are fighters for life and we love it!
As harsh as it can be, we always stand back up, whatever the conditions: war, assassinations, explosions, terrorism, even natural disaster (it's true what they say, Beirut has risen 7 times throughout history), we have always had the courage to stand back up and rise again from whatever pithole we fell into.

                              We have the will but probably not the common sense.


Zeus, an italian artist from Naples, known for his Wild Style techniques, was inspired by our will to stand up all throughout history, and to express this, he had to think and read about our lost history, about what could symbolize Lebanese in the best way possible - so he found out that we are Arabs, and that we also are Phoenicians, then, as an Italian (a Roman that ruled us we can say with a laugh), he asked me, what about the phoenix ? 

I welcomed the idea gratefully.

I asked him to send me a sketch... now, when I saw the sketch, I told him clearly that it would be impossible to reproduce this on a big wall, he simply replied by a: "don't worry and trust me."

They also say it's hard to trust an Italian here in Lebanon (since we always blame them... quoting the famous saying: "it's all because of the Italians" just to avoid blaming ourselves).

Ok, so, here we are now, months away from the sketch he showed me, and, the result is extremely shocking and heavy.

Now, the thing is that everytime I pass by this wall, I feel alive and reborn again, I was wondering if anyone had the same feeling, next to intense traffic, I'm quite sure it must optimize your day and give you back energy, an energy any Lebanese would completely assimilate and understand once he sees this eternal flying burning bird.



Ladies and gents, as part of Graff' me Lebanon, Zeus presents the Phoenix:



The Phoenix by Zeus under the Cola/Salim Slem Bridge












Special connection from Beirut to Naples





The phoenix is the mythological bird that always rises from its ashes

Have a read: Phoenix Wikipedia



P.S.: Only the black color in the background is black acrylic paint, the rest is... spray paint


And below are the photos of Zeus artwork in the graff me Lebanon exhibition









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