BEIRUT.- Marfa’ announced their inaugural exhibition, ‘Collapsing Clouds of Gas and Dust’, a solo show of new work by Lebanese artist Vartan Avakian.
The exhibition features two new bodies of work stemming from the artist’s interpretation of dust as a material index of activities that are formed and accumulated by, and on, objects, bodies and spaces. Avakian has collected dust, a fundamental material in his practice, from thousands of film-rolls found in an abandoned photography studio located in Beirut’s Barakat Building. The Barakat Building is one of the Beirut’s historic landmarks and the site of a new museum opening next year that will focus on the history and memory of the city; it has previously been called ‘the Yellow House’ and ‘the building of death’ and is currently referred to as ‘Beit Beirut’ (the House of Beirut).
The first series of work is a set of crystals grown from particles found in the dust. These crystals have been formed as a result of a chemical processes deployed to synthesize and reconstruct almost imperceptible biological debris such as hair and skin particles. As enigmatic and ambiguous artifacts, the crystals examine the act of memorial, or monument-making, fundamentally, as an act which defines the remains of a space deemed to be significant and worthy of preservation or commemoration. Monumentality, in that sense, exists not in the scale of the structure but in its historical substance, developed over a period of time. From this perspective, monuments are not only reminiscent of the past, but are built upon a projection of the future, and on a speculation of the development of scientific techniques. The crystals are seen by the artist as elaborate portraits of the Barakat Building, holding latent information engrained into the substances that were once used for their creation.
The second work is a series of photographs made from silver particles extracted from film debris found in the dust collected in the Barakat building. By enlarging and printing each silver particle — the end result is similar to a digital pixel. The physical components from which the found photographs originated are reshaped into images or opaque artifacts that carry traces of the initial objects, just as it renders them remote and cryptic.
‘Collapsing Clouds of Gas and Dust’ is less of an exhumation and more of an exploration of the potentialities of fabricating artifacts that incorporate an original script solidified in matter. The works in the show propose an original understanding of memory as a physical trace holding information waiting to be decoded or recombined, creating new possibilities and challenges for future archeology.
Vartan Avakian, b. 1977, Byblos, Lebanon, is an artist based in Beirut. He works with video, photography, installation and natural material. Avakian studied Architecture and Urban Culture at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and Communication Arts at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. He is a founding member of the art collective Atfal Ahdath and a member of the Arab Image Foundation.
Avakian is the recipient of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012. His work has been shown in Center for Contemporary Arts Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 2015; Sursock Museum, Beirut, 2015; VideoWorks, Beirut, 2015; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2012; Transmediale 2K+12, Berlin, 2012; Sharjah Biennial X, Sharjah, 2011; Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, 2011; The Cube, Taipei, 2011; South London Gallery, London, 2011; Home Works V, Beirut, 2010; Beirut Art Center, Beirut, 2010.
