During our four year stay in Beirut we came upon some impressive and thought provoking pieces of street art. This WE we went through all the photos again and hubby reprocessed them using the latest software and dedicated a separate gallery on my website to this unexpectedly rich, colorful and lively art form in Beirut. In this gallery you will find some of the finest examples I discovered. Unfortunately some of the most beautiful works of street art have been destroyed or vandalized since I found them. Luckily I was able to immortalize most of them. Some very nice pieces however were vandalized before I got to make the photo. But then again, street art is temporary at best. If street art is considered a crime by some, then perhaps we shouldn’t care when the vandalism is vandalized…The street art in the new gallery is from local Lebanese artists but also from very well-known foreign artists who traveled to Beirut. Intrigued? Have a look at them and be surprised and impressed by the magic, try to discover and appreciate the hidden message of the artist, scroll over the thumbnails, click on a photo you like and it will open in a pop-up to better let you enjoy each colorful work of art – painting small corners of a Broken City.

Many people despise graffiti – but we are more than happy to line our public spaces with something much more offensive: advertising. That’s the bigger story: the use and abuse of public space, and in that mindset we have to make a distinction between two kinds of graffiti: street art and vandalism.

Tagging, the practice of writing your name or handle in prominent or impressive positions (on windows of shops,  ridges, train- & subway-carriages, ... is indeed akin to a dog marking its territory: it’s a pissing contest, it's annoying and it costs the community hundreds of thousands of tax payers € to clean.

It is also an act of ownership. Genuine street art does not aim at ownership, but at capturing and sharing a concept. Street art adds to public discourse by putting something out into the world; it is the start of a conversation.