'Don’t Get Me Wrong' by Nabil Nahas, Pavilion of Lebanon at La Biennale Arte 2026, Installation View
Presented as part of the 61st edition of Venice Biennale, Don’t Get Me Wrong marks a major new installation by Nabil Nahas at the Pavilion of Lebanon. Conceived for the historic spaces of the Arsenale, the work brings together the distinct strands of Nahas’s practice into a single immersive environment, uniting his celebrated tree paintings with his intricate cosmic abstractions.
Spanning forty-five metres, the installation comprises twenty-six acrylic on canvas panels, each rising three metres high. Arranged as a continuous frieze, the work invites viewers to move through and experience shifting perspectives, scales, and rhythms. Drawing on the visual language of Persian miniature painting while engaging with ideas of cosmology, nature, and perception, the installation resists fixed interpretation in favour of a more fluid and contemplative encounter.
At the centre of the Pavilion is a reflection on multiplicity, contradiction, and coexistence; themes that have shaped Nahas’s decades-long artistic journey between Lebanon and the United States. Through the merging of organic forms and abstract structures, Don’t Get Me Wrong becomes both a meditation on the natural world and an exploration of Lebanon’s layered cultural identity.
Don’t Get Me Wrong is on view at the Pavilion of Lebanon at La Biennale di Venezia from May 9 to November 22, 2026.
Commissioner & Curator: Nada Ghandour.
Scenographers: Charles Kettaneh and Nicolas Fayad - East Architecture Studio
Spanning forty-five metres, the installation comprises twenty-six acrylic on canvas panels, each rising three metres high. Arranged as a continuous frieze, the work invites viewers to move through and experience shifting perspectives, scales, and rhythms. Drawing on the visual language of Persian miniature painting while engaging with ideas of cosmology, nature, and perception, the installation resists fixed interpretation in favour of a more fluid and contemplative encounter.
At the centre of the Pavilion is a reflection on multiplicity, contradiction, and coexistence; themes that have shaped Nahas’s decades-long artistic journey between Lebanon and the United States. Through the merging of organic forms and abstract structures, Don’t Get Me Wrong becomes both a meditation on the natural world and an exploration of Lebanon’s layered cultural identity.
Don’t Get Me Wrong is on view at the Pavilion of Lebanon at La Biennale di Venezia from May 9 to November 22, 2026.
Commissioner & Curator: Nada Ghandour.
Scenographers: Charles Kettaneh and Nicolas Fayad - East Architecture Studio
May 13, 2026
