BEIRUT: It takes a second or so to realize there is something strange about the gleaming black Mercedes – not least the fact that it is parked at a rakish angle in the middle of the Beirut Art Center’s ground floor exhibition space.

The car’s fabled curves are a little rough, the back end is a little square and there’s not one but two Mercedes stars – one embedded in the grill, another ornamenting the hood. The car has no license plates on either end and the interior – well, the interior is a mess.

Franziska Pierwoss’ “Toyota to Benz” is the piece de resistance of “Exposure 2011,” the latest edition of the Beirut Art Center’s annual exhibition of emerging artists in Lebanon, and the strongest show in the series to date.

Pierwoss’ contribution is a beat-up 1981 silver Toyota Corona that has been retrofitted as a slick black Mercedes-Benz C240 sedan from 2006. The car, which once belonged to the father of Pierwoss’ partner, got a two-pronged facelift from Mohammad al-Banna, an ingenious mechanic in Ouzai, and Pizant, a fashion-forward paint workshop in Mar Mikhael.

In the fine catalogue published to coincide with the show’s Wednesday opening, Pierwoss relates two hilarious conversations conducted with a mechanic and a spare parts dealer about the prospects for pulling off the piece.

The spare parts dealer wants to know exactly what year and model of Mercedes the artist is after. “But why not a BMW?” he asks.

The mechanic breaks down the simplicity of the task: “It is simple: You first cut the front part, fit the piece. Then the tail and then the roof. And then the details, like the lights ... Then you put the star, finished!”

A thumping critique of an image-conscious, surface-loving, status-obsessed society, Pierwoss’ work beautifully extends what could have been just a simple but rousing one-liner.

An entire life can be gleaned from the effects of an absent owner – the feather duster delicately placed on the dashboard, the cassettes jammed into the console between the two front seats, the taxi driver’s calling card forgotten on the floor. Shabbiness never looked so melancholy and intriguing.

The Beirut Art Center introduced “Exposure” in 2009, three months after it opened, as a means to encourage and support young artistic talent in the country.

Every year, the center issues an open call to submit proposals for works that are either new or have never been shown in Lebanon before. A jury of professionals in the field – curators, critics, art historians, other artists – reviews the submissions and select around half a dozen works to be produced and shown.

The term “emerging” is left deliberately vague. It is up to the artists to decide whether they qualify or not. In its first year, “Exposure” was limited to Lebanese nationals. Last year, it opened up to include foreigners who are living and working here.

This year’s exhibition is the first to really hold together as a show, in part because the selected works have all been painstakingly executed – none feel half-hearted or half-baked. It is also the first to truly capture the spirit of the local art scene. Perhaps not surprisingly, what gels the exhibition together is the compelling ways in which each artist grapples with a deep sense of division.

Ali Cherri’s three-screen video installation, titled “My Pain Is Real,” explores the personal associations the artist makes between major political upheavals and minor incidents in his daily life, assigning mnemonic value to vernacular images.

What he finds shuffling through his impressive bank of photographs, however, is that he doesn’t remember 9/11 or the 2006 war but “blue pants torn on the right knee,” “the desire to sleep,” “the number nine,” “the smell of matches in the teachers’ room” or “a thick beard that smells of lemon.”

Those recollections occur in the narration of two identical videos on two identical screens. Next to them is a larger screen showing Cherri’s face. The hand tool familiar to anyone initiated in the computer age seems to caress his face. Soon, however, bruising appears on Cherri’s skin, then cuts and stitches. It is unclear whether the hand tool represents a gentle lover or a brutal attacker. With a wave of his arm, Cherri restarts the process.

Nadia al-Issa, who was the BAC’s first assistant director, has debuted here as an artist with “Untitled (8 km – A Tribute to Danis Tanovic),” a formidable piece that introduces a project she plans to carry out in the new year.

A Syrian citizen of Greek origin who has spent most of her life in Lebanon, Issa plans to camp out for two days at a point on the Syrian-Lebanese border – an 8-km no man’s land. Who will stop her? Who will protect her? Who will endanger her? How will we visit her while she’s there?

“Untitled (8 km – A Tribute to Danis Tanovic)” takes its subtitle from the tough-minded feature film “No Man’s Land,” about three soldiers stuck in a trench during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. At the BAC, Issa has taken the film’s conceit, turned it upside down and run with it.

The installation effectively presents her research and her preparations to date – a vitrine packed with a tent, a sleeping bag, camping equipment, the cover of a magisterial atlas, maps, newspaper clippings, sticks, seeds and stones.

If Pierwoss’ souped-up Toyota-as-Benz reveals a process already undertaken, then Issa’s piece injects the show with future tense.

Bassem Mansour and Dana Aljouder’s mad, room-sized video installation added a real-time dimension to “Exposure.” Their otherworldly opening-night vocal duet – lurching between dulcet tones and skinning-cats sound – has now been slotted into their multiple screen extravaganza.

Also in the show, Setareh Shahbazi’s photographs, digital drawings and lacquered wood lettering and silhouettes toy with loneliness and imagination.

Stephanie Saade’s ode to destroyed objects in Beirut’s National Museum explores a curious tension between heritage and junk. Laure de Selys’ “Submarine” delves into the phenomenological differences between water, as a resource, and the sea.

Juried, generational shows always run the risk of fetishizing young talent and exposing them too soon. This time around, the Beirut Art Center got the balance just right.

“Exposure 2011” runs at the Beirut Art Center in Jisr al-Wati through Jan. 21. For more information, please call 01-397-108 or visit www.beirutartcenter.org