Mouna Rebeiz, Le Tarbouche, 2014, Oil on canvas, 194 × 304 cm

Can an item of clothing become a powerful cultural statement? This is the question at the heart of Le Tarbouche. When an Accessory Becomes a Symbol, Mouna Rebeiz's exhibition at Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice. The Lebanese-Canadian artist presents more than thirty paintings centred on the tarbouche, the traditional male headdress long associated with the Islamic world. By placing it on monumental female figures, Rebeiz transforms it into a contemporary symbol that explores identity, memory and gender while challenging inherited cultural narratives. Drawing on the visual language of Renaissance and Baroque painting while maintaining a distinctly contemporary voice, the exhibition creates a dialogue between East and West, tradition and modernity. In a museum devoted to the history of textiles and costume, the tarbouche becomes far more than an accessory: it becomes a lens through which to reconsider the complexity of cultural identity today.

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