Hrair Sarkissian's FOCUS exhibition features three major works that explore how violence can be made invisible, histories of erasure and restitution, and the sediments of conflict. In one of the artist's most recent works, "Final Flight," 2018-19, Sarkissian investigates the story of the endangered northern bald ibis, one of the rarest birds in the world and the living descendants of birds depicted in the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs. Once thought extinct, a surviving colony of seven was discovered in 2002 in the Syrian Desert near Palmyra; however, the onset of the war in Syria in 2011 severely constrained the conservation program, and the birds disappeared again around the time Palmyra was destroyed in 2014. Sarkissian employed new technologies and age-old techniques to create sculptures of the birds' skulls.
Sarkissian's most iconic work, "Execution Squares," 2008, features 14 photographs of public squares where executions take place in three Syrian cities - Aleppo, Lattakia, and Damascus. These executions are public events, where people who pass by become witnesses, willingly or not, to the extinguishment of life.
The third work in the exhibition is the two-channel video Homesick, 2014. On one screen, a model of a four-story apartment building slowly but violently disintegrates. In the second channel of the video, the wreaker of this destruction is made visible: the artist himself. With sledgehammer in hand and his face a mixture of anger and desolation, he bashes the scale model of the Damascus apartment building where he lived until 2008 and where his parents continue to live; they have refused to leave Syria despite the unending violence. The model serves as a source of comfort and longing but also a prison of memories that have become ensnared in the extreme trauma of the present.
FOCUS: Hrair Sarkissian is organized by guest curator Dr. Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation. The exhibition is presented in association with the Sharjah Art Foundation.
Hrair Sarkissian's FOCUS exhibition features three major works that explore how violence can be made invisible, histories of erasure and restitution, and the sediments of conflict. In one of the artist's most recent works, "Final Flight," 2018-19, Sarkissian investigates the story of the endangered northern bald ibis, one of the rarest birds in the world and the living descendants of birds depicted in the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs. Once thought extinct, a surviving colony of seven was discovered in 2002 in the Syrian Desert near Palmyra; however, the onset of the war in Syria in 2011 severely constrained the conservation program, and the birds disappeared again around the time Palmyra was destroyed in 2014. Sarkissian employed new technologies and age-old techniques to create sculptures of the birds' skulls.
Sarkissian's most iconic work, "Execution Squares," 2008, features 14 photographs of public squares where executions take place in three Syrian cities - Aleppo, Lattakia, and Damascus. These executions are public events, where people who pass by become witnesses, willingly or not, to the extinguishment of life.
The third work in the exhibition is the two-channel video Homesick, 2014. On one screen, a model of a four-story apartment building slowly but violently disintegrates. In the second channel of the video, the wreaker of this destruction is made visible: the artist himself. With sledgehammer in hand and his face a mixture of anger and desolation, he bashes the scale model of the Damascus apartment building where he lived until 2008 and where his parents continue to live; they have refused to leave Syria despite the unending violence. The model serves as a source of comfort and longing but also a prison of memories that have become ensnared in the extreme trauma of the present.
FOCUS: Hrair Sarkissian is organized by guest curator Dr. Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation. The exhibition is presented in association with the Sharjah Art Foundation.
Hrair Sarkissian's FOCUS exhibition features three major works that explore how violence can be made invisible, histories of erasure and restitution, and the sediments of conflict. In one of the artist's most recent works, "Final Flight," 2018-19, Sarkissian investigates the story of the endangered northern bald ibis, one of the rarest birds in the world and the living descendants of birds depicted in the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs. Once thought extinct, a surviving colony of seven was discovered in 2002 in the Syrian Desert near Palmyra; however, the onset of the war in Syria in 2011 severely constrained the conservation program, and the birds disappeared again around the time Palmyra was destroyed in 2014. Sarkissian employed new technologies and age-old techniques to create sculptures of the birds' skulls.
Sarkissian's most iconic work, "Execution Squares," 2008, features 14 photographs of public squares where executions take place in three Syrian cities - Aleppo, Lattakia, and Damascus. These executions are public events, where people who pass by become witnesses, willingly or not, to the extinguishment of life.
The third work in the exhibition is the two-channel video Homesick, 2014. On one screen, a model of a four-story apartment building slowly but violently disintegrates. In the second channel of the video, the wreaker of this destruction is made visible: the artist himself. With sledgehammer in hand and his face a mixture of anger and desolation, he bashes the scale model of the Damascus apartment building where he lived until 2008 and where his parents continue to live; they have refused to leave Syria despite the unending violence. The model serves as a source of comfort and longing but also a prison of memories that have become ensnared in the extreme trauma of the present.
FOCUS: Hrair Sarkissian is organized by guest curator Dr. Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation. The exhibition is presented in association with the Sharjah Art Foundation.
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