Paola
Yacoub

Paola Yacoub is a visual artist. She graduated from the Architectural Association in London, where she has worked on automata in photography and architecture. Subsequently, she worked as the French Institute (IFAPO) architect on the archeological excavations in Beirut city center. She began collaborating with Michel Lasserre in 2000 on perception of territories in conflict and post-conflict situations. Today, they work on the effectivity of action in the framework of proactionism.

Their public lectures and essays were brought together in the monograph Beirut is a Magnificent City. Synoptic Pictures (Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 2003). Yacoub and Lasserre have been awarded several grants and residencies, including the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2005. They have exhibited together in, amongst others, Kunst-Werke, Berlin (2000); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain (2002); Le Plateau, Paris (2002); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2003); the Venice Biennal (2003); Centre pour l’Image Contemporaine/Mamco Geneva (2004); Gwangju Biennal (2006), Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China (2008).

Paola Yacoub’s solo exhibitions include the retrospective, Drawing with the Things Themselves, Beirut art Center (2011); and the exhibition Kiss the Black Stones at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin (2012). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including The Pencil of Culture at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); the Taipei Biennale, Taiwan (2016); Home Beirut: Sounding the Neighbors,Maxxi, Rome (2017-2018); En Suspens,Le Bal, Paris (2018); and Sabine Weiss, les villes, la rue, l’autre, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018).

Paola Yacoub is the founding director of the program ARP (Artistic Research Practices), held between 2013-18 at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA), and in collaboration with the Sursock Museum in Beirut.

Paola Yacoub was awarded with the fellowship at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program together with Michel Lasserre.