Youssef Nabil, Self-portrait with Roots, Los Angeles, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.
Drawing on cinematic and orientalist visual codes, Nabil constructs an idealized Mediterranean world without borders, where warm, luminous colors and tranquil scenes suggest a sensual, liberated Orient free from prohibition. His minimalist compositions—often dominated by blues and whites—also reveal symbolist influences, while recurring themes of exile, rebirth, and dream run throughout the work. The exhibition unfolds as a chronological journey through five key stages of the artist’s practice, framed by transhistorical resonances and opening with a group of nineteenth-century expedition photographs that establish a distinction between artistic engagement with the Orient and the historical discourse of orientalism.
To dream again showcases works bearing on the artist’s youth, followed by his initial encounter with the Musée d’Orsay during his first visit to France in 1992, the third stage in the itinerary, involving a number of his tutelary figures, including Pierre Puvis de Chavanne and Odilon Redon. The penultimate room is devoted to the intersecting identities depicted by Nabil, on either side of the Mediterranean, borrowing symbols from East and West alike in syncretic creations. Two of the artist’s videos are screened in the last room, reflecting his passion for the cinematic medium.
March 5, 2026
