Stepping out of the shadow

BY DR GREGORY BUCHAKJIAN

Dr Gregory Buchakjian (b. 1971) is an art historian and interdisciplinary visual artist. PhD graduate at Université Paris IV Sorbonne, he is director of the School of Visual Arts at Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA).

Buchakjian’s research deals with art in Lebanon, focusing on city and history with publications such as Fouad Elkoury, Passing Time (Beirut, Kaph Books: 2017), Traversées Photographiques. Le journal du Docteur Cottard (Beirut, Arab Image Foundation: 2017) and Seta Manoukian, Painting in Levitation (Beirut, Kaph Books + Saradar Collection: 2018).

His exploration of abandoned dwellings and PhD dissertation generated the exhibition Abandoned Dwellings, Display of Systems, at Sursock Museum, Beirut, 2018, curated by Karina El Helou and the book Abandoned Dwellings, A History of Beirut (Beirut, Kaph Books: 2018, Valerie Cachard, ed.). Also in 2018, his Fragments from the Ridge Line were shown at the Lebanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

I can only imagine how special these people’s childhoods were, being raised by these parents with their colourful personas and highly influential personalities.

The first memory I have of Anachar is seeing him in a childhood photo. As a teenager, when my interest in art began to grow, I bought a book on Michel Basbous. It was a very beautiful book by his wife published a few years after his death. One of the many photos in the book was a family picture with Anachar, who appeared to be a very cute child, with a bashful smile. I thought to myself how lucky this boy was to grow up in such a beautiful place, and to have such special parents, as besides his father, Michel, his mother was an accomplished poet. I was fascinated by these people. During that period, there were a lot of artists that we continue to talk about nowadays, but none of them had star status as much as the Basbous family did.

Anachar grew up in this marvellous village as an only child, surrounded by these artists, the art space and all these artistic works. I discovered his existence as a sculptor in the 1990s, when I was a student and a young practitioner getting ready to start teaching at the University of ALBA. That was the period when people began talking about Anachar Basbous the artist, based on the large and spectacular work he was doing in public spaces.

It is interesting how fast he was able to make a name for himself after the years of war, because as well as his father’s renown there was also that of his uncles, collectively known to most people as the Basbous brothers. It is an undeniable achievement for Anachar to make a name for himself and to become someone separate from his father, because probably the greatest challenge in being both an artist and the child of an artist is growing up in the shadow of the parent. It must be exhausting. I know someone who had to remove his parent’s paintings to be able to live in his apartment, because the presence of the parent artist was so oppressive.

Anachar had the advantage of living in a very spacious village workshop. Although I am not familiar with his current space, I can imagine that it is gorgeous, as he has a lot of taste. He also has great kindness and generosity. When his father’s exhibition by Saleh Barakat took place at the Beirut Exhibition Centre, I wrote the accompanying article and catalogue. I was one of two writers on the team and there was a very beautiful atmosphere in the group. We did a few sessions where we worked on site, and it was splendid to spend a day in this magical place. Anachar invited us for lunch, most of the time with his wife and daughter. These were always extremely enjoyable, delicious meals in this beautiful house, filled with works of art, a lot of which were from his father. Working with him was a pleasure because he is someone very sociable, who gives back and who is understanding.

I have to add that as much as it was a pleasure, it was also very difficult at the start, because in sculpting there is this technical aspect that I wasn’t familiar with. I learned everything from Anachar who used to tell me about materials and how to treat them. And at the same time, Anachar would tell me about how certain works of his were done. I found it beautiful how this man’s words were always precise and measured. This is reflected in his works, where you always see balance and you notice the work that is done to suspend objects properly, to find the right proportions, balance and setup that works.

I can see a conversation between the works of father and son, but they are very different. We cannot ignore the big time gap between them: his father’s work preceded Anachar’s by 50 to 70 years.

What is also interesting is that Anachar’s first works had nothing to do with his father, as if Anachar was living somewhere else completely. It is what he did later on that is more interesting. In the exhibition for Saleh Barakat, a few years ago, there were a few sculptures that really touched me, and I think they were some of his strongest works to date. There is this sculpture in particular that I really admire: it resembles an eye, or more of a sun, and I find it less smooth than his other works of art. There is this rugged side to it that might be in conversation with his father. But this doesn’t really matter, because when I look at it, I am more interested in the level of maturity he reached.