This paper looks at resistance to the art salon, concentrating on the historical avant-garde in Egypt and its reaction to the salon and academic art in general. The focus will be on the Art and Freedom group, which was close to surrealism and its leading figure André Breton, and the group’s exhibition practices. Their alternative, independent exhibitions went against established tastes and models of perception, and provoked in many ways. The group wanted to challenge the prevalent bourgeois reception and production of art, the homogenization of public taste as well as the aesthetic reception of art. The museum and sacral aura of the dominant exhibition concepts were to be undermined and desacralized. The surrealists’ aim was to erode the art institution that contributed to a consolidation of power, and return to a spiritual experience of art. This experience was to go beyond a simple observation of beauty, and bring the unfinished and raw aspects of a work of art to the foreground. Exhibiting in unfinished buildings or – as in contemporary art – industrial buildings was part of this experience, but also the use and détournement of objects. The use of new media (apart from painting and sculpture), the interest in so-called primitive art, and the development of a new aesthetic repertoire that was to defy the established norms and a Eurocentristic point of view vis-à-vis the classification of art, was characteristic for the surrealists. This resulted in alternative exhibition formats that aimed at a "Gesamtkunstwerk" trying to go beyond mere visual aspects. Taking the salon and the art academy as a starting point, this paper will sketch out the debates around taste, values and morals and the resistance against established norms by the Egyptian avant-garde. At the same time the migration of these "counter-exhibitions" or manifestations that first took place in Paris and London and their implementation in Egypt will be looked at.

Exhibiting modern art in Baghdad started as an independent endeavor outside of any official structures or institutions. Lacking the infrastructure to promote modern art, it had become popular to exhibit in private homes with the establishment of the "Friends of Art" in 1941. Nevertheless, the first exhibition of Jemaat al-Ruwad (The Pioneer Group, SP) in 1950, initiated a more structured system of exhibitions that would become more regular and vibrant with Jemaat Baghdad lil Fann al-Hadith (the Baghdad Group of Modern Art) for the rest of the 1950s and most of the 1960s. More importantly, these exhibitions signaled the artists' awareness of the need for artistic and intellectual gatherings to construct a new culture capable of sustaining innovation in art. It thus initiated their role as key players in encouraging modern art and influencing public taste within the Baghdad middle class culture. Modern Iraqi artists during the 1940s and 50s were instrumental in creating art consciousness and interest in Baghdad that instigated a culture that appreciated and collected modern Iraqi art before an official institution was established. Iraqi modern art became an important identity marker for Iraqis. This alternative unofficial artistic gathering persisted as the main format even after the founding of the Gulbenkian Museum in 1962, which served as the Iraqi National Museum of Modern Art until the establishment of the Saddam Center for the Arts in the 1980s, along with a new structure of official exhibitions, such as Maaridh al-Hizb, the Baath Party exhibitions. This paper examines and historicizes this notion of alternative salons in establishing a different norm in Iraq within an evolving socio-political culture, and its role in developing an emerging middle class interested in Iraqi art as a national product, which in turn initiated the desire to collect. Moreover, the system had a decisive role in the trajectory of modern art in Iraq.

Beirut’s Sursock Museum, a modern and contemporary art museum in Lebanon’s capital, re-opened its doors to the public in October 2015, after a seven-year renovation period. Set up as an endowment under the supervision of Beirut’s municipality, the Sursock Museum is a rare example of a publicly funded institution in a country characterized by private initiatives and institutions. First opened in 1961, the museum became known for its annual Salon d’Automne, a group exhibition of contemporary art. The Salon d’Automne was launched at a time when new galleries were opening in Beirut and many exhibitions taking place, and became a symbol of the museum. The first president of the museum’s committee announced the third salon with the words that it was time “to stop encouraging and proceed to establish criteria guiding both the artists and the general public”. The direction of both public taste and the artist was clearly a mission of the salon. This paper will examine the role of the Sursock Museum’s Salon d’Automne in terms of to what extent it patronized art and in fact impacted the debates on art in Lebanon in the thirty-one salons that took place between 1961 and 2012. It will look at why and by whom the salon was initiated, also comparing it with the “Painting and Sculpture Salon” organized by the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts in the UNESCO Palace between the late 1940s and mid-1970s. Who participated in the Sursock Museum’s Salon d’Automne and how were works selected? The paper will also analyze the salon’s relationship to the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts and its interaction with other galleries and exhibition spaces, and how these relations shifted over time. Who was the public whose taste the salon wanted to develop? Drawing on a range of sources including newspaper articles, exhibition catalogues, interviews with former jury members, art critics and museum staff, its legacy and future prospects will be discussed.