Mekhitar Garabedian | without even leaving, we are already no longer there

S.M.A.K. presents the first museum solo exhibition of the Syrian born and Belgian based Mekhitar Garabedian (1977, Aleppo). Garabedian examines the position of the individual and the development of his identity in contemporary society shaped by migration. Using widely divergent media he examines how the rupture caused by migration continues to determine the present in a hauntological way and how, linked to that, multilingualism shapes the position and psyche of the migrant. Garabedian investigates the conceptual possibilities and potency of the work of art. Just as his personal history as a migrant is layered, his discourse reveals all kinds of quotations. In addition to numerous references to literature, music and philosophy his work also refers to other visual artists.
Introduction MG, a 2006 light box, is a handwritten quotation from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s text A Lecture on Ethics (17th November 1927, Cambridge). In this Dutch translation Garabedian replaces the word ‘English’ by ‘Dutch’. Wittgenstein apologizes for his poor knowledge of English; Garabedian does the same for his knowledge of Dutch. The note is signed by the artist and can be considered as an introduction to his further work. The various themes addressed in this work are, in fact, present throughout Garabedian’s entire oeuvre. This work also exposes a number of thought processes in terms of methodology which are at the heart of much of his work. In fact, you could argue that Garabedian develops his work by assembling texts, which resonate with his personal experiences. In the video L’Étranger (2006) he stages Charles Baudelaire’s poem of the same name and with The End, Again (2009) he refers to John Gray’s Black Mass. The End, Again consists of a traditional gold wedding ring with the title engraved on the inside and the outside. This post-conceptual translation of a possible emotional (or philosophical) content to a conceptual formal language is also clearly visible in the neon work for the last one (2008). It is unclear whether the artist is referring here to the last bearers of the culture with which he was forced to break because of his migration – a culture which, following the break, determines his identity more than ever – or to a more emotional interpretation rooted in love.

Garabedian collaborates regularly with the artist Céline Butaye. They worked together on Intimacy is being angry and it doesn’t relate to anything or anyone because no one is inside of you with your language to understand (1999 - present). This ongoing series of photographs portrays Garabedian while he is asleep. The title is taken from a poem by the designer and artist Susan Cianciolo. La Question arménienne (2006-2008) is also realized together, resulting in an oil painting reproduction of the title page of a book that was published in Lebanon in 1975 following a conference on the Armenian genocide. Garabedian often refers to the Armenian diaspora, with which his personal history is so entwined and to the experience of ‘diasporic intimacy '. In the video Learning Piece: Be Patient, My Soul (2005), for example, an elderly Armenian man teaches the young artist an Armenian revolutionary song. This video refers to Vito Acconci's performance Learning Piece from 1970, but simultaneously reminds us of the difficult relationship experienced in the diaspora with the tradition of a culture.

The disappearance and inevitable loss of the memory of a troubled past – while still being haunted by this same past – is also central to the sound installation Agheg (2003). Here, the artist asked his father to (try to) remember all the names of people that he had met in the various countries where he had lived. Just like a migrant, you are confronted as an observer with an environment that excludes you, by both the linguistic barrier and by the intimacy peculiar to the personal world of Garabedian's father. The conflict between this internal world of the Armenian diaspora and the external Belgian reality also plays an important role in other works. The neon work, MG (2011), places the initials of the artist in the Western alphabet alongside those in the Armenian and Arabic alphabets. This Broodthaersean identification of the artist with the initials of his name engenders unexpected connotations that are both politically and personally charged.

Pressetext

KünstlerInnen: Mekhitar Garabedian