Haig Aivazian

Tiles

Artwork Details

Artist

Haig Aivazian

Title

Tiles

Date

2016

Medium

Graphite on paper

Dimensions

Variable

Credit Line

Art Jameel Collection

Work Description

Inspired by research of the specific history of the dispersal of marble across the urban fabric of modern Istanbul, Tiles is an installation of 45 irregularly shaped and framed graphite on paper drawings of various dimensions. Displayed leaning against the wall, overlapping one another, like a storage of a showroom, they are an accumulation and record of pieces of marble found in the city. Aivazian approaches the act of drawing as a conceptual practice, which arises out of the need to answer the ontological question, ‘Where are we?’. The process of drawing contains, within it, time, and it also has the ability to imply absence.

The work appropriates the practice of replacing damaged ornamental marble cladding in Byzantine architecture using hand-painted reproductions. Rather than succeeding in replacing or repairing the original, the hand-painted slabs mark an absence of heritage, of labour and of a material witness. Tiles applies this restoration method to address a micro-narrative relating to musical modernity in the Middle East. Istanbul Radio was established in 1927 as a tool to shape a cultured Turkish citizenry around a collective act of listening; a way to transition from an Ottoman identity to a decidedly modern Turkish one. In the process of building the station, the vast Pangaltı Armenian cemetery was destroyed. Its marble tombstones were dispersed and integrated into the city’s architecture. The destruction also made room for new developments, including Gezi Park, turning the area into the iconic centre of the new metropolis. In 2013, when bulldozers began to demolish Gezi Park to build a shopping complex in its place, they exposed remnants of the Pangaltı tombstones before being blocked by mass protests. The multiple layers and uses of marble make it serve as a driver and witness of history.

Artist Biography

Haig Aivazian (b.1980, Beirut, Lebanon) lives and works in Beirut

Haig Aivazian is an artist, curator and writer who works across a range of media, his work delving into the ways in which ideologies embed, affect and move people, animals, objects and architecture. He is a PhD candidate at Leiden University, The Netherlands, a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumnus, with an MFA from Northwestern University, Evanston, US, and a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. From 2020-22 Aivazian was Artistic Director of Beirut Art Center and founding editor of thederivative.org. His work has been shown at numerous exhibitions worldwide including The Showroom, London (2022); the Berlin Biennial (2022); New Museum Triennial, New York (2021); Yokohama Triennial (2020); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Home Works 8, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (both 2019), among many others.

www.haigaivazian.com

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