From concrete, from what is most often overlooked, Anachar Basbous has created the new, harnessing a sensitivity that winds its way around accretive forms hewn from concrete blocks, working back into his own walls, with a softness that comes from the porous insides of the material and finds its way out.
Basbous is renowned for his expertise with simple forms, technical excellence, his ability to shape raw material into the unexpectedly pristine, for charting a unique course within a powerful artistic familial legacy. He knows art, knows forms, knows the way to create. What he can do with materials is impressive and powerful, at times sensitive and gentle, but the territory that he has entered for this exhibition, his preceding qualities touched with a uniquely humble softness, this is new.
Sculptures takes half of this exhibition, the rest is taken by large wall panels in relief, swirled rubble, carefully arranged parts, definite and poetic, ruined and complete. While the concrete sculptures of Basbous hold a concern with formality, a faith in the material, form, that keeps lyricism at a distance, this resistance to symbol sees a shift in his wall-based works. Here there is a more painterly poetic, a feeling of narrative, story. At times this too finds a resistance, a lightness of touch competing with the sheer weight of the material.
Combined, these works have the capacity to remind the viewer of the simple building blocks of life, the growth of what has been and what is yet to come. In their subtle balance of the aged and the new they provide a moment to look from the outside in, to become strangers to ourselves, yet still right at home.
Anachar Basbous was born in 1969, Lebanon and lives and works in Rachana, Lebanon. After graduating from high school in Beirut, he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d'Art (ENSAAMA), where he studied architectural wall design. In 1992 he returned to Lebanon, opening his own sculpture workshop in Rachana and dedicating himself to stone, wood and metal sculptures, as well as wall sculptures.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include; Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon (2018); Lumieres du Liban, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France (2021); Between shadows and lights, Art installation /Art in motion, Ixsir, Lebanon (2022); Artcurial Sculptures Monaco, Claude Lemand Gallery, Paris, France (2023); Anima Gallery, Qatar (2023); Bonhams / Claude Lemand Gallery, Paris, France (2023).
His sculptures can be found in public and private collections across Lebanon and the rest of the world (Canada, France, Singapore, United States, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). In addition, his works have been acquired by the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and Christies, London.
For the painters and poets, Laura J. Braverman, Amy Todman and Afaf Zurayk, of Faith in the Forming painting and poetry share an equal weight, though not a weight that can be measured on a scale. Rather the balance is one of knowing what is already there, what is coming from within. A word can be placed beside every painting, but this is hardly the point. Rather, for some, the painting or poem might arrive alongside its neighbour, might suggest itself perplexedly. Indeed, the relationship of the poem to the painting may be unclear, perhaps must remain a little unknown, because the painting and the word, though related, reach toward singular spaces, both of which continue to unfold alongside one another.
