Abel Hartooni
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The salt in the merchant’s letter,
The silk in the painter’s guts,
And here we are looking back to the tracks
That could’ve made us touch the in-betweens
That tie us together
Solo exhibition at Trefpunt Ghent, 2024
Curated by Rojin Delfan
Thinking of the generative aspect of the Lines, ( as sort of life bearers), was the point of departure for this project. Every living being is composed of lines, or better a bundle of lines, and it can not hold on unless it puts out a line. Within the life of lines what matters more than the volume, is the movement. When we follow specific lines some things become reachable while others remain out of reach. The directions are not usually casual, rather they are organized, more specifically Lines could be performative, meaning that they depend on the repetition of certain norms and conventions. We walk on the path that is in front of us, yet we simultaneously produce them while following them.
By pausing on the movements, I started looking back at the history of diasporic movements of Armenians and their continuation. How Julfan Armeians were forced to Iran during the reign of Abbas the first, the way they were consumed politically, economically and sexually, and additionally how they thread the bundles of their trade diaspora,all the way from Isfahan to Manila,Canton, even Mexico from the eastern frontiers and to Amsterdam and London from the Western frontiers during the early days of Capitalism.
For this exhibition, I brought together the fragmented loose ends of both my research and practice within experience of an expanded painting. While installing the work, I had the intention of making a map of all these intimacies that do not necessarily join-in. There were several different influences for me to think of different ways I could think of unfolding this map within the space. Inspired by Gayatri Gopinath’s idea of deploying a queer cartographic imagination, which brings into the field of vision precisely those bodies, desires, and modes of affiliation that are elided within dominant colonial or, indeed, postcolonial nationalist cartographies.
For me this map attempted to instead of projecting a certain idea onto the material, to make visible those bodies, desires, movements, and intimacies that are neglected within the colonial (or post-colonial) nationalist cartographies, and simultaneously embraces disorientation, uncertainty, and fluidity instead of territorialization, scrutiny and control while employing a more abstract method of making visual processes.
Cloud map
Laser jet print, ink, liquid Latex and pigments
Not here, Not here (after Mansur Ibn Ilyas)
Oil, Acrylic, ink and wool thread on Canvas, 250x 180 cm, 2023
Left:
A love letter from Calcutta to New Julfa
Right:
Te quiero hasta las entranas (Letter from Manila to Madras)
Oil on canvas, 58x50 cm, 2023
Water color on cotton paper, 31x22 cm, 2024
From series of “Blobs threading lines”
Water color on cotton paper, 31x22 cm, 2024
From series of “Blobs threading lines”
The politically eunuch Hydra
Water color on cotton paper, 31x22 cm, 2024
From series of “Blobs threading lines”
Water color on cotton paper, 31x22 cm, 2024
From series of “Blobs threading lines”
Water color on cotton paper, 31x22 cm, 2024
From series of “Blobs threading lines”
Forced to Ejaculate
Water color on cotton paper, 31x22 cm, 2024
From series of “Blobs threading lines”
“While the wild birds dwell on our ruins,
You threw yourself into the water
And became food for the fishes.
But here I am, still waiting
For the crane to sing about
Our hunted memories (after Komitas)”
Oil on canvas, 30x30cm,
2023