ART CITIES:Beirut-Vartan Avakian
Vartan Avakian’s work is based on the idea that all data exist in sculptural form and only appear as “fossils.” Consequently, memory too is seen as an activity of excavating and deciphering data from traces and remains. In order to explore practices of cultural production and commemoration, the artist employs different media such as video, installation, sculpture, and photography.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Marfa’ Projects Archive
In his solo exhibition “Of All That is Seen and Unseen” at Marfa’ Projects in Beirut Vartan Avakian examines printed books as sculptural objects which preserve information. These symbols of history, imbued with the weight of culture and authority, are both unique and reproducible. Avakian devises a series of protocols, procedures, and rituals to extract and bring to light their many hidden layers of incidental inscriptions and markings reminiscent of a palimpsest. Not only does he reveal these layers, but in his installations he separates them from their previous form and converts them into new sculptural fossils. The exhibition put at its forefront a series of printed books, looked upon as sculptural vaults of preserved information. These symbols of history, imbued with the weight of culture and authority, are both unique and reproducible: while the meat of their pages is left to speculation, the books’ presence in the gallery is evidence of their educational and historical worth. The exhibition put at its forefront a series of printed books, looked upon as sculptural vaults of preserved information. These symbols of history, imbued with the weight of culture and authority, are both unique and reproducible: while the meat of their pages is left to speculation, the books’ presence in the gallery is evidence of their educational and historical worth. In “Composition with a Recurring Sound”, the sound of a river flows through a sculptural piece of repeated forms. The sculpture captures and makes palpable, so to speak, the movement of materials in the river, which includes water, biological life, industrial waste and other pollutants formed in its environmental surroundings. This flow creates a discreet almost inaudible resonance, that can be tactually felt on the sculpture. The sound of flowing water played through copper tubes are left to reverberate in a closed circuit of repetitive forms indefinitely. These waves persist until they decay and are imperceptible. By trapping and capturing this material presence, Avakian’s sculptures propose artworks that are at once a representation of this presence, and a new inscription created by it. After studying architecture and urban culture at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and Communication Arts at the American University in Beirut, Avakian joined the Arab Image Foundation and jointly founded the collective Atfal Ahdath alongside other Lebanese artists Raed Yassin and Hatem Imam. The name translates into “juvenile delinquents” or “Children of the Events”, referring to Lebanon’s 15-year-long civil war (1975-1990), internationally infamous not only for its drawn-out violence, but for its lack of clarity and archival material. It was common practice (one imposed by governmental forces) to whitewash the war, to forget and start anew; what this process left in its wake, however, was a nation-wide cultural amnesia, a topic commonly explored through the fictional and fabricated ‘archives’ of many contemporary artists. The collective builds interest around the production and consumption of memory, history and how they find themselves as individuals and artists implicated in these dynamics. The delinquency of their projects is found in the fact that they plagarise, steal and upcycle material from image banks and photo studios from every reach of the Arab world; in stealing such archival material, they build on truthful narratives of Lebanon’s just-lived past, but do so through twisted storylines and contrived facts. Their work, which is directly informed by and through Avakian’s solo practice, underlines how the experience of temporality shifts, how memory is not necessarily something one experiences in the past and later recollects, but rather something that can be taking out of context and/or manufactured for future use.
Info: Marfa’ Projects, Marfa’ street, Beirut, Duration: 24/1-30/3/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-19:00, Sat 14:00-18:00, https://marfaprojects.com
