Kalfayan Galleries present the first solo show in Greece of Lebanese artist Vartan Avakian, titled ‘Residual Histories’.The exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries opens on Thursday, 20 September 2018, 20.00-22.00.

Vartan Avakian’s work stems from an understanding of data as an inscription. This data exists in sculptural form and is fossilized over time. Consequently, memory is seen as an activity of excavating and deciphering data from traces and remains. In Residual Histories, in drect dialogue with his recent solo show at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Avakian examines printed books as sculptural objects which preserve information. These symbols of history, imbued with the weight of culture and authority, are both unique and reproducible. Avakian devises a series of protocols, procedures, and rituals to extract and bring to light their many hidden layers of incidental inscriptions and markings reminiscent of a palimpsest. Not only does he reveal these layers, but in his installations he separates them from their previous form and converts them into new sculptural fossils.