Toupie

Galerie Tanit in Beirut presents Toupie, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Zad Moultaka, from 29 October to 3 December 2026. The works are oil on canvas, all dated 2026. They range from a square canvas of twenty-five centimetres a side to a canvas measuring 100 by 121 centimetres. The show is at the gallery's Mar Mikhael space on Armenia Street.

The title is the French word for a spinning top. The gallery's text takes the toy as the starting point of the series: a top stays upright only while it spins, so its balance is never still. Each picture starts as a field of colour, organised by axes and lines of tension. Moultaka then works into it, shifting, wiping back or cutting across the paint.

Across the paintings, among them Toupie 2, Toupie 4 and Toupie 5, the top shows itself, fades and comes back in a changed state. At times it is no more than a trace or a direction of movement. According to the text, the aim of each canvas is less to fix a shape than to set up the conditions in which one can emerge.

Moultaka, a composer and visual artist born in Lebanon in 1967, divides his time between Beirut and Paris. He turned from a pianist's career to composition and visual art in 1993. In 2017 he represented Lebanon at the 57th Venice Biennale with ŠamaŠ, Soleil Noir Soleil. Galerie Tanit showed his Oro Tenebris in Beirut in 2024. The gallery is open Monday to Friday, 11am to 7pm.