Spanish street artist Axel Void rounded 2021 out with a mural in Beirut that provokes fresh dialogue with the public. While recent art installations in the city by FaithXLVII and Alba Fabre Sacristán have sown sympathetic superblooms, Void’s contribution triggers something else. On a multi-story structure in Beirut, the Cadiz-based creative painted an old photograph of someone who lost their nose, censoring the most sensitive part.
Where the very center of Void’s reference photo should show an amputated finger slid beneath the skin on this subject’s face, the artist covered this detail with a very specific scene from Hieronymous Bosch’s iconic painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights. The selection that Void has recreated from Bosch’s triptych depicts a bird feeding throngs of humans below—an enigmatic addition encapsulated within the mural’s composition by its own ultra-neat rectangular frame.
Viewers typically read Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights chronologically, a story in three parts. Its left panel starts with the union of Adam and Eve, then the consummation of sensuality in the center, followed by eternal damnation in the far right panel. The Garden of Earthly Delights has hypnotized viewers since its completion in 1500—first the chain of royalty who owned this artwork, then museum-goers in the modern era, and after the internet, everyone with a computer. In 2018, Artsy even published an article about the trendiness of the phrase “Boschian,” a catchall adjective like “curated.” Bosch’s nightmare maximalism has certainly struck a chord in the collective consciousness, but if you say a word too many times then it stops sounding like a word.
Void told Street Art United States that this mural was a collaboration with a Lebanese artist Alaa Mansour as he thought it would be important to work with someone that is from this particular context that is so complex for a foreigner (like him) to fully grasp. When asked about the message behind the mural, Void said he’s leaving interpretations about his mural in Beirut to the viewers’ own discretion. He’s covered his tracks and left few clues. The healing man immortalized by Void’s reference photo is a stranger, not specifically from anywhere in Lebanon and not specifically the victim of any particular conflict. Although Void’s surreal selection from The Garden of Earthly Delights might come off dystopian, it doesn’t hail from the triptych’s final, hellish portion. Instead, this bit is from the central painting, a vision of ecstasy and indulgence. This snippet is about intoxication, not hangovers.
Beirut’s murals from the past year, that were organized by Persona and ArtOfChange, have erred towards quiet support for the city’s spirit, all empathy and petal-soft imagery. Void’s mural contributes a new tone—shock and awe rendered in his dreamy palate. Though the artist’s facades and canvases convey a high-contrast and candid realism, they’re still soft and subtly impressionistic. Even so, this mural pushes the artist’s socially-conscious practice to more visceral planes. At the same time, Void’s effort expands the voices on Beirut’s walls at this critical moment in the city’s history. After an infamous civil war and more recent economic depression, the Middle Eastern metropolis stands ripe for a change of inertia. An ancient and storied cultural center, Beirut has no want for inspiration in determining where to go next.
Even absent an answer from Void, his mural raises perhaps more interesting questions than the topics of subject matter and intent. As a visiting artist, it was a bold choice for Void to step away from painting flowers in a place like Beirut. He will not walk these streets every day and contend with the cornucopia of emotions imagery like his can produce. Maybe he’s not just flexing his muscles, but taking the city seriously, meeting its eye level with a challenge—another perspective, another style, and another installment in the cultural expansion of Beirut’s bright future, always just within its citizen’s grasp, on its streets.
Axel Void: web | facebook | instagram
Alaa Mansour: instagram
Persona: web | instagram
Art of Change: web | instagram
