46 47 ABRAHAM KARABAJAKIAN ART FOR ART’S SAKE 48 A bout 100 artworks hang in a 900-metre apartment-cum-exhibition space on the fifth floor of the Lebanese capi- tal’s Residence Marina Bay building on the Dbayeh waterfront. Without glancing at a piece’s corresponding caption, Abraham Karabajakian explains its subject, theme, material, date and name. It is an impressive feat for a 600-strong collection comprised predominantly of Modern and Contempo- rary Middle Eastern artworks divided between four areas – his Beirut home, two storage facilities and the space itself, owned by his art partner Roger Akoury. “There is a fifth component,” says Karabajakian, “Pieces on loan!” The collection, called KA after its founders’ last names, began as Karabajakian’s hobby about two decades ago until it became a dual collaboration in 2011. Based in Bucharest, Akoury, who works in pharmaceuticals, admired his friend’s passion for art and witnessed the financial challenges that Kara- bajakian was facing in acquiring Modern Arab works. This was 2010 – the year that ex-Jeddah Mayor Dr Mohamed Farsi sold his collection of Arab masterpieces at Christie’s Dubai and Paris sales for record sums and also marked the opening of Doha’s pioneering Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern He began as an art enthusiast, became a collector, curated an exhibition and now co-owns a non-profit space in Beirut that showcases Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern art. Myrna Ayad meets Abraham Karabajakian and discusses the KA Collection, as well as the patron’s plan to help launch a museum in the Lebanese capital. 49 Modern Art, whose holdings include the world’s largest collection of Modern Arab works. The scales of supply and demand shift- ed as buyers sought to acquire such pieces in a small, radically appreciating market from collectors, many of whom did not want to part with such rare works and others who waited for prices to rise. “Buyers are becoming more educated and mature,” notes Karabajakian. “I can feel that in the auctions.” These events whetted the appetites of Karabajakian as well as dealers, auction houses and collectors alike, all who suffered from es- calating prices, rarity and authenticity. “I don’t have a bank,” laughs Karabajakian. “Roger and I have a greater spending power as two people and so he proposed that we start this togeth- er.” Financial clout aside, Karabajakian also suc- ceeded in transmitting ‘the art virus’ to Akoury, who has since taken an active interest in the field. Today, the duo join a list of Lebanese art patrons practicing ‘soft power’ to promote the country’s cultural output, such as banker Ray- mond Audi and fashion mogul Tony Salamé, who have taken their collections outside the confines of their homes and placed them in public areas as well as their trade outlets. “The private sector is doing a lot for Lebanon and we should be proud of these individuals,” says Karabajakian. “Politicians normally work to ad- vance a country, but they don’t do that here.” COLLECTING TO CURATING The roots of Karabajakian’s passion for art begin in his Armenian home in Lebanon. His father loved music, enough to publish a book about the songs of the Armenian Church and though “There was no purpose to my collection. You don’t plan on becoming a collector. A real collector never does that.” Opening spread: Amine El-Bacha. Composition Abstraite. 1968. Oil on canvas. 70 x 95 cm. This page: Aref El-Rayess. Untitled. 1998. Acrylic on canvas. 110 x 110 cm. Facing page: Abraham Karabajakian at his residence with (from left to right) Saliba Douaihy. Apollo . 1976. Oil on canvas. 73 x 110 cm; André Butzer. Untitled. Undated. Oil on canvas. 220 x 360 cm; Marwan Sahmarani. Le soldat bleu. 2013. Oil on canvas. 220 x 175 cm. Photography by Maria Dib. ART PATRON ART PATRON he wasn’t a collector, art was appreciated. De- spite the wars in Lebanon, the family remained in the country, and several schools later, Kara- bajakian enrolled in the law programme at Beirut’s Saint Joseph University, but later opted for a Bachelor’s degree in Management. During this time, he acquired “small, affordable pieces” and went on to complete an MBA in Marketing at his alma mater. “I’m curious,” he says matter- of-factly. “I love beauty and art is beautiful.” One of Karabajakian’s first loves is Caucasian carpets, an interest which was triggered some two decades ago, when he bought a few to deco- rate his new flat. “A friend of my father’s visited me, saw the carpets and laughed. He said ‘I’ll give you two and you’ll see the difference’,” says Karabajakian. “It took me five minutes to put aside the ones I’d bought and buy books on Caucasian rugs.” Today, he owns over 50 such carpets, which range in age from 100 to 200 years. “And they shouldn’t be on the floor,” laughs his wife, Manal. Among some of the earliest artworks that he acquired are a series of lithographs by one of Armenia’s most celebrated artists, Carzou (Karnik Zouloumian) purchased from a Beirut exhibition. Other early acquisitions feature those by Yugoslav painter Kiro Urdin, bought in Paris while Karabajakian was en route to the South of France and subsequently spent all the vacation money he had. “There was no purpose to my collecting. You don’t plan on becoming a collec- tor. A real collector never does that,” he stresses. “You buy art to enjoy it and then, when you real- ise you have more than your walls can take, they label you a collector.” An insurance broker by profession, Kara- bajakian continued to buy Middle Eastern art- work and, in the process, “dreamed of having a museum of Modern art in Lebanon.” In 2009, friends of his bought a former factory in Dora, one of Beirut’s busiest suburbs, and showed Karabajakian the 1200-square-metre rectan- gle with 6.5-metre-high ceilings. It needed refurbishing to become functional, but Kara- 51 “I do love abstract art, because you can see anything you want to and it lets you dream. ” This page: Above: Shart Serge. Le Buveur. 1965. Oil on canvas. 116 x 89 cm. Below: Yvette Achkar. Untitled. 1960. Oil on canvas. 100 x 90 cm. Facing page: Interior view of Abraham Karabajakian’s residence. On the wall (from left to right) Dia Al-Azzawi Voyager’s Trace 4 . 2008. Acrylic on canvas. 150 x 150 cm; Shafic Abboud. Baroque . 1970. Oil on canvas. 100 x 100 cm; Paul Guiragossian. Autour de l’enfant . 1985. Oil on canvas. 81 x 116 cm. On the floor and table (from left to right) Alfred Basbous. Mother And Child 1998. Bronze. 31 x 10 cm; Untitled. 1985. Marble. 30 x 90 cm; Leda . 1997. Marble. 55 x 30 cm; Joseph Basbous. Woman . 2000. Wood. 30 x 10 cm. Photography by Maria Dib. This page: Abraham Karabajakian with (from left to right) Marwan Sahmarani. The Lottery Seller . 2012–13. Oil on canvas. 170 x 130 cm; Saliba Douaihy. Untitled. Undated. Acrylic on canvas. 90 x 110 cm; Paul Guiragossian. Printemps 1980. Oil on canvas. 116 x 75 cm; Paul Guiragossian. Spring . 1988. Oil on canvas. 65 x 65 cm. Photography by Maria Dib. Facing page: Etel Adnan. Landscape 1990. Oil on canvas. 70 x 100 cm. bajakian immediately saw an opportunity and pleaded with his friends to lend him the space in order to stage an exhibition. In col- laboration with fellow art enthusiast Tamara Inja Jaber, Pieces For A Museum opened in 2011 and showcased works by Lebanon’s Modern Masters Paul Guiragossian and Shafic Abboud, owned by private collectors. “The show’s title meant the message was very clear: that these pieces belong in a museum,” says Karabajakian, whose partnership with Akoury had, by this time, begun to develop. ABSTRACT POSSIBILITIES The artworks in Karabajakian’s home reveal a deep-seated affinity for Abstract Expressionism and geometry. “I do love abstract art,” he admits. “Because you can see anything you want to and it lets you dream.” Though his domestic gallery is akin to traveling through different eras – Paul Guiragossian, Beirut, 1940s and Saliba Douaihy, New York, 1950s, to Dia Al-Azzawi, 1970s, Lon- don and Marwan Sahmarani, Beirut, 2000s – the works share common threads of style and colour. It’s an interesting curatorial outlook, especially with the inclusion of abstract works by German-born André Butzer. “Beauty has no nationality,” asserts Karabajakian. “I like his work, I can’t deny that, but I do focus on the region.” He is quick to affirm that he “does not buy names”, preferring instead “to buy pieces”, a practice that has seen him, for example take a decade to find and acquire a work by Amine El- Bacha in Paris. Another situation occurred with Baroque by Shafic Abboud when he persuaded 53 the artist’s daughter to sell him the 1970 oil on canvas piece. In 2009, he came across a man who owned a work by Guiragossian. Karabaja- kian bought the 1965 piece, which had been given to the man by the Master’s son, Emma- nuel. “Lucky for me, I found him,” smiles Kara- bajakian. And then there is the set of Guiragos- sian paintings that he acquired from the artist’s wife’s doctor, “probably gifted for the birth of each child and when Guiragossian used a knife and hard brushes to paint.” He then points to an artwork by Carzou that was in the collection of a museum in Japan that closed in 2002. “I track them down,” he says, citing the importance of bringing back such masterpieces to Lebanon. Like other patrons of his collecting cali- bre, Karabajakian co-owns works by the Arab world’s ‘usual suspects’ but they are, by and large, among the most unique. “He always goes for the unusual,” says Manal. “By the time he shows me an artwork, he’d already have gone through endless research and an elimination process.” Karabajakian regularly rotates art- works in his home and at the KA space, often spending about a week working at the latter. The habit is time-consuming and rigorous, so much so, that when the couple’s eldest son was once asked what his father does for a living, he replied, “He hangs artworks.” When asked if he could personify the collection, Karabajakian at- tributes qualities such as “freedom, joy, colour and simplicity” to it. As far as KA is concerned, it views like a visual anthology of, principally, Lebanese art “When you are surrounded by beauty, you become more optimistic, creative and innovative. ” 54 from the 1950s until the present day with, for example, a 70 x 100 cm oil on canvas piece dated 1990 by Etel Adnan (and among the largest she created) as well as a series of piec- es by Aref El-Rayyes from 1962–99, and a 1951 oil on canvas by Douaihy that marked one of the artist’s first forays into abstraction. Of course, there is a Contemporary contingent, which includes works by Ayman Baalbaki, Ab- dulrahman Katanani, Shawki Youssef and Ous- sama Baalbaki, among a number of others. Interestingly, Karabajakian has juxtaposed The Crying Man , the first oil piece he acquired by Sahmarani, against The Beginning Of The World by Ziad Abillama, a sculptural abstract rendi- tion inspired by Gustave Courbet’s The Origin Of The World ART FOR ALL Mistakes, of course, have been made along the way and Karabajakian figures that there are about 15 pieces in KA that can be trimmed to allow for the purchase of more important works. He sticks to acquiring Contemporary art from galleries and maintains that buying Mod- ern pieces from auctions is a relatively safe op- tion as provenance and authenticity are gener- ally secured. “You can’t find beautiful Modern works anymore and price is an important fac- tor to consider,” he says. The view from the fifth floor of the Resi- dence Marina Bay waterfront is spectacular. Viewable by appointment only, it is a tempo- rary space until KA secures a permanent home in Lebanon. “This collection is for the country,” ART PATRON This page: View of the KA exhibition space (from left to right) Huguette Caland. The Purple One . 2012. Acrylic on canvas. 165 x 416 cm; Assadour Bezdikian. Untitled. 2008. Oil on canvas. 81 x 100 cm; Huguette Caland. Summer In Venice, LA . 2011. Acrylic on canvas. 165 x 410 cm. Photography by Maria Dib. Facing page: Interior view of the KA exhibition space. Photography by Maria Dib. Photography by Agop Kanledjian and all images courtesy KA Collection, unless otherwise specified. 55 ART PATRON “If you don’t show art, you bury it. If we don’t do this now, when would be a right time? Lebanon is always politically volatile.” says Karabajakian. “When you are surround- ed by beauty, you become more optimistic, creative and innovative.” Both he and Akoury have already begun talks (concerning lend- ing works from KA) with individuals from the Association for the Promotion and Exhibition for the Arts (APEAL), the commissioning body behind the country’s participation at the 55th Venice Biennale and which has held exhibi- tions of Lebanese art in the USA and UK. APEAL has already identified and secured a plot for a museum, facing the National Museum of Beirut, “a strategic location that is neither East nor West Beirut,” says Karabajakian, “be- cause in Lebanon, you need a unifying place.” The individuals supporting this venture are currently at preliminary stages of drafting the gallery’s mission and vision and intend on launching in about four years, provided Leba- non is not crippled by internal and regional politics. This begs the question: why take a risk in such a volatile environment? “For a start, if you don’t show art, you bury it,” says Karabaja- kian. “Secondly, if we don’t do this now, when would be a right time? Lebanon is always politically volatile.” For more information visit www.ka-collection.com