Nabil Nahas has been selected to represent Lebanon at the 61st edition of La Biennale di Venezia, taking place from 9 May to 22 November 2026. This presentation is commissioned and curated by Nada Ghandour and organized in collaboration with the Lebanese Visual Art Association (LVAA).
One of Lebanon’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Nabil Nahas is known for his visionary practice that bridges abstraction and figuration through meditative compositions rooted in geometry, nature, and the cosmos. The Selection Committee made up of Nada Ghandour, Maria Sukkar, Basel Dalloul and Elie Khouri, commented: "Nabil Nahas has an extraordinary ability to explore the intricate relationships between nature, geometry, and the cosmos,creating a unique visual language that seamlessly blends abstraction and figuration.
His monumental works, existing between painting and sculpture, employ fractal forms with both scientific precision and artistic sensitivity. The result is an immersive, sensory, and meditative experience that navigates the tensions between chaos and harmony. Through his art, Nabil Nahas offers a poetic vision of the world – one that resonateswith contemporary concerns while evoking both the spiritual and the material, the intimate and the cosmic.”
Born in Beirut in 1949, Nahas studied in the United States and holds an MFA from Yale University. He currently lives and works between Beirut and New York. His works are held in major collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Tate Modern (London), The British Museum (London), and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha), among many others.
The Lebanese Pavilion will be located in the Arsenale, one of the two main historical sites of the Biennale. It is produced by the Lebanese Visual Art Association (LVAA), a non-profit organization based in Paris, France.
Main Image: Portrait of Nabil Nahas. Photography by Fawzad Owrang. Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi and the artist.