Nabil Kanso: Echoes of War

About the Exhibition

What can we learn from a painting about the experience of war?

Nabil Kanso: Echoes of War follows the artist Nabil Kanso’s endeavor to create awareness about historical events and show solidarity with those suffering globally.

Born in Lebanon in 1940, Kanso left Beirut to study in London before moving to New York to pursue a career as an artist in 1966. While Kanso frequently traveled back to his family home in Beirut, the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 sparked a series of events that prompted him to permanently resettle outside Lebanon. After moving from New York to North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana, he eventually settled in Atlanta, Georgia. There, he found a new studio space that allowed him to work on a larger scale. He painted prolifically and read broadly about history, literature, and politics until his untimely passing in 2019.

Kanso’s monumental, mural-like paintings consider the experience of war across key historical moments. Throughout his practice, his work addressed topics spanning the history of the United States, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, apartheid in South Africa, and mass incarceration in the US. This exhibition focuses on Kanso’s works related to historical events in the region referred to as the Middle East, including the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990), the Iraq War (2003), and the Syrian Refugee Crisis (2011–present). Collectively, Kanso’s paintings illustrate that these experiences of conflict are often shared across history, much like the factors that spark conflict reoccur over time. By learning about these important moments, Kanso provides us as viewers the opportunity to think about how to imagine a future free of conflict.

Kanso’s paintings ask us to think about the individual, subjective experiences of war and what it means to show solidarity with those facing injustices and learn from those experiences—past, present, and projected into the future. Through painting, Kanso invites us to revisit the age-old question: how can art affect social and political change?

Nabil Kanso: Echoes of War is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and curated by Dr. Rachel Winter, Assistant Curator, with support from Laine Lord, former Curatorial Support. This exhibition was developed in partnership with Professor Salah Hassan, Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities, and The Nabil Kanso Estate. This partnership was the catalyst for the international art history symposium “Aesthetics of Solidarity,” that will take place at MSU from April 9–12, 2025. Major funding for this exhibition is provided by the MSU Federal Credit Union with additional support from the Salwa Mikdadi Research Award provided by the Association for Modern + Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran + Turkey.