The Beirut Art Review is a non-profit, open access and peer-reviewed journal. It aims to publish historically and theoretically aware, reflective and critically engaged articles, reviews and other writings on, in, and for the Beirut artworld, the region and the diaspora.

The journal was founded in 2024 by faculty in the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at the American University of Beirut. It is published by the American University of Beirut Press and is supported by the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan Chair for Arabic and Islamic Studies.

 

Scope of the Journal

We cover the broadly understood ‘Middle East’ or ‘South West Asia’, and North Africa, plus the diaspora from these regions. We primarily cover modern, postmodern and contemporary art, however we will consider articles submitted for earlier periods.

We will publish on art theories and interpretive models or paradigms that are not specific about period or place, though supporting example artworks from the regions above would be preferred. We acknowledge, and potential authors should be aware, that these intellectual traditions are grounded in a materialist history and cannot be entirely separated from their origins.

We will publish on Art History itself, its institutions, historiography, canons and the artworld that are substantially western, but only if they are critiques and there is a significant Middle Eastern or postcolonial component.