PARIS — The designer Karen Chekerdjian is known in her native Lebanon for modernist objects made with traditional materials and techniques. Now, two exhibitions in Paris — at the Institut du Monde Arabe and at the private Dutko Gallery — offer a close look at an artist who addresses the divide between art and function, and the wider gap between Western and Arab cultures.

The show at the Institut du Monde Arabe, “Respiration,” opened on May 30 and runs until Aug. 28. The exhibition at the Dutko with the same title closed on Sunday, with pieces offered for sale through August.

“The idea was to show the positive elements of the Arab world,” said Philippe Castro, the chief adviser to Jack Lang, the president of the institute and a former French culture minister. “Today, that can only be shown through Arab art. There is real creativity coming out of the Arab world, especially Lebanon. Given the geopolitical context, we felt it was important to give a voice to this narrative.”

Ms. Chekerdjian, 45, who is of Armenian descent, was raised in Lebanon, the region’s most diverse society, a land unsettled by decades of conflict and turmoil, most recently by fallout from the Syrian war. She began her artistic career in film, then moved on to graphic design before earning a master’s degree in industrial design from the Domus Academy in Milan, where, she said in an interview in Paris, she learned to “think rather than design.”