InternationalTable Talk and Photographs
A visit to Yerevan’s Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art
by Gregory Lima
Published: Friday January 09, 2009
An interruption by Mkrtich Nazaryan, taken at Yerevan’s Cascade. The well-barbered hedge serves as a stage where both a camera and a cell phone intrudes. Mkrtich Nazaryan
Yerevan - Is it legitimate to ask of a work of art, What are you saying to me in your languages and within your constraints?
Yes, and this observer not only expects a possible silent dialogue with the artist as present within the work, but when faced with attractive nuances, he is hopeful of whole narratives.
Contemplating the answers to such questions was the pleasure in going to an exhibition of the recent work of a wide selection of Armenia's current crop of young artists, finding much of the work fresh, feeling deeply engaged the entire time, and coming out pensive and smiling.
The occasion was three concurrent exhibits at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art, as arranged and selected by a diverse group of young curators.
Some three dozen artists have contributed multiple examples of their work. Space and time allow a focus here on only a few.
Of the three exhibits, the most intrinsically interesting is titled, "Identity," organized on the theme of the modern Armenian woman's assertion of a more interactive, egalitarian social role.
Table Talk
Among the installations created by the participating artists in "Identity" is an empty chair beside a bare table on which is some knitting. On the empty chair is the sketched outline of a woman; on the table the flat drawing of a hand. The installation suggests a particular situation in which this woman exists as a less-than-three-dimensional creature beside the table. With her existential self almost invisible, only the fruits of her labors appear to have gravity and substance.
If that description touches at least a part of the artist's meaning, it provokes discussion. Determining the key statement of each of the installations and bringing this search for meaning to a shared, open dialogue is the intent, the serious import, and the fun of this exhibit.
As curated by Arpa Hacopian, the unifying element in her theme of "Identity" is the table. "The table - whether in the dining room or the office, in a garden or a train cabin - the table spontaneously compels interaction," she asserts.
"Can the table be used as a symbol to represent society, the individual, or the identity of the individual?" she asks. "This exhibition is a meeting place for such an idea."
On the affirmative side of this idea is the extraordinary installation presented by Lousik Agouletzi. Over the years she has gathered a rich collection of the clothing, accessories and artifacts of Armenian traditions giving them new life in her creative hands. (See her profile in "The Costumes of an Armenian Woman," Armenian Reporter, February 2, 2008.)
Her table represents the social identity of Armenia and its women. It holds the bounty of living Armenian holiday tradition presented here in what can be seen as the grand sweep of a wedding dress with a long train. It is a paean to the homemaker. The bride, this suggests, brings with her the weight of Armenian culture in her taste, skills, industry and perseverance. The laden table, exciting all five senses, is replete with symbolism in Armenian arts and crafts and is here put together with what seems the bride's creative delight and her offers of heartfelt hospitality.
If Lousik's contribution carries to her table a lifetime of research and application, adjoining it is a parody of a "table" made with scraps at hand in good humor by a male installation artist.
Some sheets of newsprint create a rectangular surface on the floor, around which are four cushions. On the newsprint there is a scatter of empty plastic bags, a cigarette butt near the smudge where it was extinguished, and a bottle of booze with four glasses. The assumption is four men have gathered in camaraderie and perhaps after downing several glasses they offered a toast to their women. Then they went home to eat. The installation makes an effective contrasting conversation piece.
"There is the impression that in Armenian society that the Armenian man has given the keys to the kitchen to his wife, and sitting in the dining room is waiting for the delicious diner to be served," Arpa says wryly. Maybe that tradition still exists, she observes, but one can see her shaking her head as Armenian women seek and achieve a more self-assertive identity.
She sees this identity being formed in the past and in the future at the table "around which there are at least two persons, a woman and a man, and later a group of persons. Here are formed the value systems of the individual, the family, the social groups, and the society."
One provocative installation, by Sonia Balassanian, is a table set with a row of empty plates. They imply, as of the moment, a lack of effective social dialogue. The empty plates, which remain empty as you stand there, suggest a growing hunger that is not satisfied. On the table across from the plates is a high mound of flour. The means to meet the hunger is present. But some action that is absent must be taken with that flour. Until that is done, as we identify with the empty plates, the hunger in our society grows, and we are still not effectively talking to each other on what we are going to do about it.
Arpa Hacopian's own installation is a circle of circles from which drape diaphanous white veils. The ensemble suggests young girls at a rite of initiation. Also suggested is that if you lift the veils you would find the breathtaking beauty and innocence of our new generation of girls. If, on the other hand, they are tables these are not veils but pristine table cloths and we are in a more mundane world. As tables they call less for the usual prayers of passage than for a meaningful dialogue over a fresh slate on the Armenian woman's search for her 21st-century identity.
