Mazen Kerbaj

Mazen Kerbaj: a quick overview

MaKerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon. His parents were prominent Lebanese artists. He holds a degree graphic arts and advertising with an emphasis in illustration (El Kadi). He has written fifteen books, and illustrated countless others. He is known as the father of jazz in modern day Beirut. He currently lives in Berlin, as of 2015.

Kerbaj and the Lebanon Jazz Scene

More recently, Kerbaj has shifted his focus towards music. He plays the trumpet and has been credited with playing a major part in the rise of the Lebanon improvised jazz scene. On the nights of the 15th and 16th of July 2006, Kerbaj went out onto his balcony in Beirut during an Israeli airstrike and created a recording he later named "Starry Night". Journalist Peter Cusack writes, "It is a graphic example of ‘sonic journalism’, journalism of and for the ear—the sound equivalent of photojournalism." He calls it "one of the most stunning field recordings of the past decade ". Faintly, in the background, you can hear the bombs drop as Kerbaj plays what he calls "minimalistic improvisation". After one large blast you can hear car alarms and dogs barking, as Kerbaj continues to play his trumpet despite the chaos and violence surrounding him. His daring creation makes for an impactful and eye-opening auditory experience. In recent years, Kerbaj has relocated and now resides in Berlin and continues to produce music. Between the years 2018-2019 alone, Kerbaj has composed a song called “Walls Will Fall:The 49 Trumpets of Jericho” where 49 Berlin trumpeters collectively performed in a large water reservoir. According to old testament, its walls had once collapsed after just seven trumpeters played. This all plays to the idea that music has the capacity to break down barriers or walls in society which Kerbaj holds close to the central theme of this piece. Kerbaj continues to attempt to break down musical barriers in the new workshops he offers at the Exploratorium in Berlin where he and his students work to discover new and personal methods and techniques for playing their instruments or even to create their own instruments entirely.

Most Notable Works

2003: "Lettre a la Mere (Letter to Mother)
Published in French by L'Apocalypse this graphic novel is as Kerbaj puts it, "a love/hate letter" to his hometown of Beirut. The novel can be complex and at times contradictory, mirroring, Kerbaj's own feelings about Beirut. On the one hand, it is clear that the political instability, violence, and the scars left by it, leave him hating the place, but on the same token, he voices a deep and intense love for his hometown and the communities within. Like much of his other work, Lettre a la Mere contains political satire and criticism veiled behind depictions of the mundane and otherwise everyday.

2006: "Kerblog"
Kerbaj, like many Lebanese artists utilized the internet to offer up "live" documentation of the tragic and brutal July War in Beirut. He used his website (currently nothing has been added to the site since 2014) to produce and publish a series of comics that World Literature Today called, "comical and haunting." But what sets the "Kerblog" comics apart from the multitude of other works that were released during and shortly after the event, is Kerbaj's persistent declaration that the images were, "not political" but rather focused on the human experience of the tragic ordeal.

2007-2017: Beirut Won't Cry
A compilation of the "Kerblog" comics, this graphic novel was originally published in French by L'Association, then Arabic by Snoubar Beirut, and finally was released in English by Fantagraphics. It is a memoir of Kerbaj's experience during the month long Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2006. He chronicles the terror of hiding from airstrikes and juxtaposes these dramatic and terrifying moments with domestic images of daily life, namely spending time with his son and ex-wife, drinking whiskey, and making music. The images are ugly, beautiful, strange, and familiar all at the same time and offer a unique and human snapshot of Beirut.

Contextualizing Beirut

Rana El Kadi wrote in her analysis of Kerbaj's improvised jazz piece "Starry Night", "Due to the country’s conflict-ridden history and volatile present, contemporary art in Lebanon possesses an intricate relationship with conflict". With this in mind, here is a 'brief' historical account of the ancient, colonial, and modern state of Beirut and by extension, Lebanon.

These photos from Google, offer up a multi-faceted view of Beirut. From left to right, top to bottom the images include a tourist's photo of the city, a plan of the city of Beirut, a promotional photograph for tourism in Beirut, street art in a dilapidated building, an image of the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli bombardment, and finally a stylized flag of Hezbollah, a prominent political organization in Lebanon. These photos show the many faces of Beirut and indicate the rich history of the city. The images of violence and destruction juxtapose the pristine images in a way highlighting Beirut's radical shift from violence and political instability to a stable tourist economy.

Ancient Beirut

The city of Beirut has a rich and ancient history and is widely considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world. The city is proud of its connections with the ancient Phoenician, Roman, and Greek empires. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie discusses, in her analysis of the Beirut film industry, that what the little money the Lebanese government can spare for artistic and cultural development is primarily spent on the stewardship of ancient monuments and ruins.

Colonial Beirut

Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, Lebanon fell under the colonial umbrella of France and was enveloped by French culture and modes of governance. This colonial history has left an indelible mark on the country as French is still the country's second most spoken language. Traces of French influence can also be traced through Beirut's artistic scene, namely its film and even comics. Mazen Kerbaj's texts for example all have their publishing origin in French and his 2003 graphic novel, Lettre a la Mere 's opening line "Mother died today" is a direct homage to Albert Camus' The Stranger.

Modern Beirut: The Civil War (1975-1990)

A truly defining chapter of Lebanese history and an inescapable aspect of identity, this 15 year conflict took the lives of 144,000 people and displaced tens of thousands more. The conflict was sparked by religious tensions between Maronite Christians who made up most of Lebanon's political elite and Muslim communities who felt disenfranchised and marginalized within the country. So began a series of violent engagements between the government and the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO. Kristin V. Monroe discusses the lasting impacts of the conflict in her book, The Insecure City: Space, Power, and Mobility in Beirut. She outlines how the prevalence of 'car bombs' impacted the "urban landscape" of Beirut, solidifying and reinforcing systems of power. The war came to an end in 1990 thanks in large part to brokering by other Arab countries like Saudi Arabia. One such peace broker was Rafic Hariri, a Lebanese national with notable Saudi business connections. Slowly but surely the violence calmed down and so began a decade or so of revitalization and urban development.

Modern Beirut: New Conflict, Old Players (2004-2005)

By 2004, the Lebanese government had begun to face plenty of serious criticism for its relationship with Syria. Many believed that the Lebanese government had become a puppet for Syrian interests and were staunchly opposed to the number of Syrian migrant workers and troops that were in the country. One of the most famous voices from this camp was Rafic Hariri, the guiding force behind Beirut's revitalization and the prime minister from 1992-1998 and again from 2000-2004. The growing anti-Syrian sentiment sparked new and old tensions, residual from the civil war, which culminated in Hariri's assassination in 2005. This shook the country and had a profound impact on Lebanese politics.

Modern Beirut: The July War (2006)

In July of 2006, the radical political group Hezbollah, initiated a cross-border raid into Israel. The attack took the lives of three Israeli soldiers and two were captured and brought back across the border to Lebanon. The Israeli government sanctioned a rescue mission which failed and five more Israeli soldiers were lost. Through a series of further escalations, eventually the Israeli government sanctioned and followed through with a bombing campaign that lasted over 30 days. Over 1,000 people lost their lives and Lebanese infrastructure was severely impacted.

Beirut's Future

After decades of conflict, occupation, and violence Beirut looks poised to make a stunning rebound. Phillip O'Brien, the Head of Humanities at Minerat College in Melbourne, Australia outlines how the city has taken huge strides in overcoming its violent history in order to cultivate a thriving tourist economy. He uses the "New York Times" as evidence, citing that in 2009, only three years after the tragic events of 2006, the newspaper ranked Beirut as one of the 44, "top places to go". While there is still and incredible amount of tension, only exasperated by the recent turmoil in the neighboring country of Syria, the fact still remains that the city has become and remains a tourist hot spot. Additionally, artists like Kerbaj have worked hard, despite the state's financial limitations to grow and develop a rich and meaningful, albeit unorthodox cultural center for jazz, film, and of course alternative comics.

Works Cited

"Coming in August: Mazen Kerbaj's 'Beirut Won't Cry', Finally in English". ArabLit Quarterly, WordPress.com, May 10,2017, https://arablit.org/2017/05/10/coming-in-august-mazen-kerbajs-beirut-wont-cry-finally-in-english/
El Kadi, Rana. “Satirical Illustrations and Militant Improvisations: A Multimodal Social-Semiotic Analysis of Mazen Kerbaj’s Wartime Art.” Popular Music & Society, vol. 40, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp. 201–221. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/03007766.2015.1121641.
Fadda-Conrey, Carol N. “Writing Memories of the Present: Alternative Narratives about the 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 1, 2010, pp. 159–173. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20642079.
SECURING BEIRUT.” The Insecure City: Space, Power, and Mobility in Beirut, by KRISTIN V. MONROE, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey; London, 2016, pp. 79–100. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1b67ws4.10.
Kerbaj, Mazen. "Kerblog". 2006-2014. http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com
Kerbaj, Mazen. "We Resist Real News from Beirut". Monthly Review Press. 2006 http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/kerbaj190706.html
Love, Paul. "Beirut Won't Cry: Lebanon's July War: A Visual Diary by Mazen Kerbaj. World Literature Today, December 05, 2019,https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2018/march/beirut-wont-cry-lebanons-july-war-visual-diary-mazen-kerbaj
O'Brien, Phillip. “This Changing World: Beirut: a Changing Urban Environment.” Geography, vol. 100, no. 2, 2015, pp. 114–119., www.jstor.org/stable/43825431.
“Mazen Kerbaj - Walls Will Fall - The 49 Trumpets of Jericho (Bohemian Drips, 2018) *****.” The Free Jazz Collective, http://www.freejazzblog.org/2018/12/mazen-kerbaj-walls-will-fall-49.html.
Wilson-Goldie, Kaelen. “The War Works: Videos under Siege, Online and in the Aftermath, Again.” Art Journal, vol. 66, no. 2, 2007, pp. 68–82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20068533.

Kerbaj Today (or at least more recently)

As mentioned previously, Mazen Kerbaj has recently been involved in a large public demonstration called "Walls Will Fall". In this political demonstration, Kerbaj pulled together forty-nine trumpet players and attempted to reenact the biblical story of bringing down the walls of Jericho. They played in a water reservoir in Berlin-Pankow, Germany. In the original story, Jericho was brought down by seven musicians playing for seven days, so perhaps the forty-nine trumpet players were symbolic of that, as it would be relatively difficult to play nonstop for seven days.
While maybe not discernible at first, this thirty-four minute piece is played in parts, first with tapping their instruments, then gradually starting to blow their horns, ending in several musicians shouting "walls will fall!"
The walls the musicians hope will fall are not specified, but unfortunately, the modern world is full of walls, so this performance could be directed toward the wall between Israel and Palestine, President Trump's wall against immigrants, or less physical walls like the wall between classes in our capitalist society.
The musicians in this performance include Güley Alagöz, Tom Arthurs, Ulrike Arzet, Nafea Abo Assi, Damir Bacikin, Juri Bell, Johannes Böhmer, Linus Bornheim, Paul Brody, Axel Dörner, Sabine Ercklentz, Ruhi Erdogan, Gabeyre Farah, Steffen Faul, Cornelius Fritsch, Gaetano Gangarossa, Callum G’Froer, Alexander Gibson, Dennis Ginzburg, Nils Lennart Haack, Claudia Habig, Brad Henkel, Didrik Ingvaldsen, Tyge Jessen, Jan Kaiser, Milad Khawam, Carina Khorkhordina, Martin Klingeberg, Anke Lucks, Arvid Maier, Yannick Mäntele, Gisela Meßollen, Fritz Moshammer, Nikolaus Neuser, Frank Noé, Dearbhla Nolan, Daniel Allen Oberto, Kelly O’Donohue, Achim Rothe, Florian Scheffler, Kristine Schlicke, Aaron Schmidt-Wiegand, Leo Schmitt, Paul Schwingenschlögl, Saeid Shafiei, Przemek Swiderek, Mai Takeda, Cornelia Wolf, and Armando Carrillo Zanuy. The trumpet players are all based in Berlin but come from countries all over the world.

Who is Mazen Kerbaj?