Lebanese artist and academic known for pioneering Invisual Art and founding Tabbouleh Day
Ricardo Mbarkho
Mbarkho in 2011
Born
(1974-01-25) January 25, 1974 (age51)
Beirut, Lebanon
Nationality
Lebanese
Education
Institut supérieur des beaux‑arts (Beirut); École nationale supérieure des Beaux‑Arts (Paris); École supérieure d’études cinématographiques (Paris); Carnegie Mellon University (Exchange)
Knownfor
Creative industries, Research-Creation, Video art, New media art, Invisual art
Movement
Invisual art
Awards
Lebanese Ministry of Culture Prize for Contemporary Arts (2010)
Ricardo Mbarkho (born 25 January 1974) is a Lebanese artist, researcher, and assistant professor, best known as central figure in the Invisual Art genre, alongside Alexandre Gurita. He is also the founder of the Tabbouleh Day. Working across dematerialised practice, socio-economic modeling, and protocol‑based interventions, Mbarkho interrogates the political economy of the creative industries, the materiality of language, and the social conditions of art’s visibility. He has produced video[1] and digital arts.[2] Mbarkho's current artwork remains exclusively Invisual Art practices. His practice spans two decades of exhibitions, publications and academic research, positioning him at the forefront of post‑conceptual, post‑object art in the Middle East and worldwide. He lives and works in Beirut.
In his digital images period,[3] as well as in his time-based work,[4] he investigates multiple questions related to interactivity,[5]language, communication,[6]cultural industries, history of art as well as the visual representation[7] within the sociopolitical sphere.[8]
Early life and education
Ricardo Mbarkho was born into a Maronite‑Christian family in Beirut on 25 January 1974. Growing up during the Lebanese Civil War, he was exposed early to questions of mediation, communication and the fragile infrastructures of public life, concerns that later became central to his artistic vocabulary renouncing all kinds of religious and nationalistic affiliation.
In 1992 he enrolled at the Institut supérieur des beaux‑arts in Beirut, completing foundational studies in visual arts. Seeking broader theoretical perspectives, he moved to Paris in 1996 where he simultaneously attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux‑Arts and the École supérieure d’études cinématographiques (ESEC), earning a DNSAP in Visual Arts and a diploma in Cinematography.[9] While at ENSBA, he participated in an LVMH‑funded exchange at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh (1998–1999), where early experiments in network art and algorithmic image processing laid the groundwork for his subsequent digital works.[10]
Mbarkho completed doctoral‑level research in Information and Communication Sciences at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, focusing on the interaction between media arts and cultural industries.[11]
Academic career
Since 2002 Mbarkho has taught at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA), where he is Assistant Professor and Head of the Research Department. He has designed interdisciplinary curricula that bridge theory, critical studies and creative practice, and has supervised graduate theses on cultural and creative industries.[12]
His essays have appeared in peer‑reviewed journals such as Leonardo published by MIT Press, SAGE and Cambridge Scholars.[13]
Invisual Art genre
Ricardo Mbarkho (right) and Alexandre Gurita (left) during a press conference at the Beirut Art Center, July 3, 2015
In 1998 Mbarkho met French artist Alexandre Gurita, whose Biennale de Paris had embraced anti‑spectacular, de‑institutionalised art forms. Together they articulated Invisual Art, a mode of artistic practice that abandons both material and immaterial objects in favour of information, situation and protocol. Rather than producing works to be seen, the artist designs conditions, mindsets or socio‑economic models that operate independently of a viewing public. Gurita provided the institutional framework through the Biennale de Paris, the Revue de Paris, and the Ecole nationale d'art de Paris (ENDA), while Mbarkho developed theoretical and practical methodologies through published texts, art projects such as Tabbouleh Day and the Bible by ChatGPT, and academic framework with the Atelier of research and creation in invusual art,[14] at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts - University of Balamand in Beirut.
Principles
- Rejection of the artwork as commodity.
- Emphasis on processes, gestures and contexts.
- Deployment of communication networks and social rituals as material.- Dematerialisation beyond the immaterial: art without art.
- Socio-economy as art medium
Artistic practice
Invisual art (1999–present)
Tabbouleh Day (2001–ongoing) – Declared annually on the first Saturday of July, this protocol invites individuals worldwide to prepare or merely imagine the Lebanese salad tabbouleh, transforming an everyday culinary practice into a global artwork. The genesis of the Tabbouleh Day is embedded in a complex and conflict-ridden history. This celebration, far more than a mere gastronomic event, reveals a profound evolution of its meaning over time. It marks a major turning point that not only redefines the role of Tabbouleh in Lebanese culture but also its influence on a universal scale. Celebrated privately or publicly by millions, the piece subverts nationalist symbolism and the logic of art events.
The Bible by ChatGPT (2024) – Instead of producing a visual artwork, the artist commissioned ChatGPT to write a new Bible, mimicking the Apostle Luke, who wrote without ever meeting Jesus. This editorial protocol questions the nature of sacred truth and authorship in religion and art. Mbarkho situates the work within the socio-economic model of publishing, outside the visual art market. The project exemplifies his research-creation approach that challenges art’s material boundaries and investigates extra-visual, or invisual, domains.
Each One Has from Art What Art Has from Itself (1999–) – A framework querying human connections without any predetermined object or outcome, executed through informal gatherings and online exchanges.
Video and New Media period (1999–2012)
During this phase Mbarkho translated canonical texts—religious scriptures, constitutions, trade agreements—into bitmap images by mis‑classifying text files as image files, thereby allowing binary code to dictate chromatic arrangements. ;Major series
Digital Visuals from Lebanon (2008) – Abstract images derived from post‑independence governmental treaties.
Gare de Lyon – Juvisy (1999) – Early experimental video questioning transit and urban anonymity.
CONNECTED (2003) – A website that displays the number of connected people, framing ubiquity as an aesthetic signal.
Arameans (2007, video, 3′36″) – A meditation on identity and minority language politics.
Grading the Lebanese Constitution (2011) – An online platform inviting citizens to grade constitutional articles, rendering legal text participatory and stats.
Events and screenings
Solo
• 2012 (May 15-29) - Fine Pixels, Galerie Mark Hachem, Beirut, Lebanon
• 2009 (June 5-12) - [Since Art], microARTos, Contemporary Art Center, Madrid, Spain
• 1999 (June 4-7) - Week-end Pierre-Yves Fave Portes Ouvertes, Pierre-Yves Fave apartment, Les Lilas, France
His videos have been presented at dokumentART (Poland), Signes de Nuit, Les Vagamondes Festival, and Videoformes (France), Art Video Exchange (Tromsø/Oslo) and Transmediale and EMAF (Germany).
Publications and research
Mbarkho writes in Arabic, French and English, focusing on media art, cultural policy and the socio‑economics of creativity. Selected publications include:
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2021). «En marche vers une idéologie neutre de la politique culturelle», in incertains regards, Presses Universitaires de Provence, France. ISBN 979-1-03200-345-9
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2021). «What Is at Stake in the Interaction between Media Arts and Cultural Industries in Lebanon», Leonardo, Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, Volume 54, Number 6, The MIT Press. 714–716. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02098
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2016). «L’interdépendance dialectique entre création artistique médiatique et industries culturelles», in Fann wa imarah journal, Issue No. 6, Institute of the Fine Arts – Lebanese University.
Mbarkho, Ricardo, Dussolier, Claudine, Nawar, Abdo (2014). Presentation of RAMI Platform in Lebanon
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2012). Response to With the benefit of hindsight, what role does new media play in artistic practices, activism, and as an agent for social change in the Middle East and North Africa today?], Ibraaz online forum
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2013). «Trauma Stimulated Art, or the Embodiment of Affect in Lebanon: An Allegory», in Traumatic Affect. Cambridge Scholars Publishers
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2012). «On New Media and Creativity in Lebanon», Leonardo, Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST), Volume 45, Numéro 2, The MIT Press
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2011). On New Media and Creativity in the Lebanese Setting: 2008–2011, published by The MIT Press in Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) (Leonardo/ISAST)
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2011). Lecture in «Conferences on the History and the Future of the Internet» – WJ-SPOTS
Mbarkho, Ricardo (2010). «A different kind of media creativity in the Lebanon», in Cultures and Globalization Series 2009: Cultural Expression, Creativity & Innovation. SAGE Ed.
2010 – Prize of the Lebanese Ministry of Culture for Contemporary Arts, Visual Art Forum, Beirut.[15]
Critical reception
Critics have linked Mbarkho’s invisual socio-econimic and dematerialised strategies as rooted in informational aesthetics, post-conceptual art, and resistance concepts of Duchamp, Deleuze and Foucault, as well the "the institutional critique of Hans Haacke," noting his distinct re‑working of Lebanese cultural and religious symbols.[16] Jean‑Claude Moineau, writing for the Biennale de Paris, calls Mbarkho "a major practitioner of an art that emancipates itself from even the immaterial condition of contemporary art."
Legacy and influence
Mbarkho’s articulation of Invisual Art has influenced a generation of Middle‑Eastern artists experimenting with socially engaged and post‑object practices. Tabbouleh Day has entered Lebanese popular culture, while his binary‑generated images are cited in media art curricula across Europe and North America.
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