Kaph Books

Gregory Buchakjian

Gregory Buchakjian is an art historian and interdisciplinary visual artist. He lives and works in Beirut where he was born in 1971. PhD graduate at Sorbonne Université, he is director of the School of Visual Arts and Associate Professor at Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA). Buchakjian’s practice is based on narrative, archive and archeology. Investigating on urban turmoil, dereliction and heritage engendered his PhD dissertation, the subsequent book, Abandoned Dwellings, A History of Beirut (Beirut, Kaph Books: 2018, Valerie Cachard, ed.) and the solo exhibitions Abandoned Dwellings, Display of Systems (Beirut, Sursock Museum, 2018 curated by Karina El Helou) and Abandoned Dwellings of Beirut (Brussels, Villa Empain, 2019). In 2018, he was showcased in the first national pavilion of Lebanon at the Venice Architecture Biennale and he contributed to the Works on Paper accompanying Karina El Helou's Cycles of Collapsing Progress exhibition in Oscar Nimeyer's Tripoli International Fair. In 2019 he conceived the installation Where do filmmakers go? for the 2nd Alba Cinema encounters, "Filming in Times of War", which he co-organized. In 2021, he created with Valérie Cachard and Sary Moussa the video Agenda 1979 at the invitation of the Opera National du Rhin, and the installation Hercules and Omphale for the exhibition How will it end? (Villa Empain, Brussels, in partnership with Centre Pompidou), based on a painting that was damaged by the blast of the 4th of August 2020 he attributed to Artemisia Gentileschi. In 2022, he premiered at Fotofocus Biennial Cincinnati his long-term Record of an Ordinary Life and intervened with Temporary art Platform in the Roman Temple of Hosn Niha. Member of the advisory committee of the Saradar Collection, he took part in many juries including Sursock Museum Salon d’Automne (2009), Boghossian Prize (2012), Beirut Art Center’s Exposure (2013), Beirut Art Residency (2017) and Arab Documentary Photography Program (2019).