NADIM KARAM
n the late 1990s and early 2000s, Beirut was undergoing a metamorphosis. Crumbling, pock-marked buildings etched with the violence of the 15-year-long Lebanese Civil War were being knocked down and replaced at a dizzying rate. A new, barely recognizable city was emerging from the reconstruction frenzy. The characters of Lebanese artist and architect Nadim Karam’s sculptural installation (1997–2000) appeared amid this backdrop of flux. For over four years, a troupe of 20 quasi-fantastical and larger-than-life metal figures—a stocky elephant, a mysterious wildcat, a windswept running couple, among others—marched across rooftops and squares, moving, as if on their own, from neighborhood to
