The Archaic Procession did not find its way only to the city. Descendants of its animalistic archetypes have since become pleasantly decorative polished steel sculptures, released in editions. There was a sense of spontaneity to the animal pieces Karam once let loose in Beirut, like escapees from a zoo; every few months, he would change their positions at night to surprise the city’s inhabitants. To see these derivations produced in sets and placed on mantelpieces as with Wild Cat (2011), Miu (2017) and others, clashes with this history. Whereas these forms were meant to celebrate and sustain the stories and auras of cities, here they appeared sterile and tamed. Sculptures from the “Cultural Warrior” series, however, develop Karam’s forms more effectively. In pieces such as Baby Phoenician on a Camel, Hannibal on an Elephant, and even the generic Diva on a Rhino (all 2013), stainless steel figures atop corten steel animals conjure an engaging historicity akin to his early watercolors.

In recent years, Karam has also worked outside of the language he developed for The Archaic Procession, creating sculptures and paintings of headless human figures with wide plumes of smoke rising from their necks. The imagery in paintings such as Raining Thoughts (2015) is obvious but compelling: a playfully delineated figure stands, arms open, against a gold background, scribbled animal forms tangled in the cloud emitted from his neck. The smoke motif is notably refined elsewhere in another painting, Growing Thoughts (2016), and a steel sculpture, Stretching Thoughts, Seated (2015), both of which resemble Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker (1884–1916)—at least up to the neck.