gregory buchakjian

In 2022, I accomplished a site-specific intervention commissioned by TAP - Temporary Art Platform - in the Temple of Hosn Niha (Directorate of Antiquities code HN51). The Roman sanctuary resembled a site of catastrophe, which led me to envision it as an ephemeral, displaced monument to the silos of the Port of Beirut. These structures became symbolic markers of the August 4, 2020 explosions. My intention was to draw, in white chalk and at a 1/1 scale, the 48 circular silos of the port across the temple and its surrounding mineral landscape. However, despite the project's prior approval, employees from the Directorate of Antiquities interrupted the work and erased the white circles that had already been drawn on the stones.

When François Sargologo and Hanibal Srouji invited me to join The End of Romanticism, I created a drawing that represents an aerial view of the temple of Hosn Niha. Depicting a precise stone-by-stone drawing and subdued tones, the work stands in contrast to the dramatic sensibility often associated with Romantic depictions of ruins, affirming that Romanticism has perished in our ongoing apocalypse.

Meanwhile, a residency at MACAM - Modern and Contemporary Art Museum-, offered an opportunity to draw the invisible links between sites of decay, since MACAM is located in the abandoned Alita factories, once producers of chalk, the same brand I used at Hosn Niha. The space also features four silos similar in shape and size to those of the Port of Beirut. During the residency, I performed series of actions within these modern ruins, documented by drone. The wallpaper of HN51 over the artist’s body is a still image taken from this footage.

Since the courses of our lives are layered with rubble, my body, lying on the ground, becomes covered by the drawing itself. What I hadn’t expect was the reaction of the installer at Galerie Janine Rubeiz as he unrolled the wallpaper.