InternationalA center of excellence – with a smile
by Vincent Lima
Published: Saturday November 14, 2009 in Cafesjian Center for the Arts, Editorial Notebook
Fernando Botero’s Cat is already a Yerevan landmark. Grigor Hakobyan / Armenian Reporter
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Yerevan - Over the past few weeks, my colleagues and I have been writing a lot about various aspects of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts, which had its Grand Opening on November 7-8: we've written about the sculpture garden, the Arshile Gorky exhibit, the glasswork by Libenský Brychtová, the Grigor Khanjyan mural, the photographs by Pattie Boyd, and more. Each element has its own story and is impressive on its own. Now it may be time to step back and look at the bigger picture.
As I step back, I find myself overwhelmed. The scale of the gift Gerry Cafesjian has given the City of Yerevan and the Republic of Armenia is difficult to fathom.
I have to ask myself: Am I reacting the way I am just because he's my boss? No. I remember the tears that came to my eyes exactly a year ago, when I covered the opening of the new, state-of-the-art building of the American University of Armenia. I wrote at length about it at the time.
What makes such gifts, and specifically this gift by Mr. Cafesjian, special is the scale of the vision behind the generosity.
The Cat
For many people in Yerevan, it all began with the Cat.
Of course, it really began with renovations: the Cascade, at the heart of Yerevan, connects the city center to the elevated residential neighborhoods of the north. The escalators, the escalator shaft, and the garden were all in sad shape, and the Cafesjian Museum Foundation, formed in 2002 as a public-private partnership, fixed them. Everyone had reason to be grateful. Then the Cat arrived.
What was this giant bronze sculpture that had suddenly appeared in the center of the city? Some skeptics raised their eyebrows: a black cat? a statue with its tongue sticking out? But the people took to it, and very quickly Fernando Botero's Cat became a beloved landmark and attraction in Yerevan.
I moved to Yerevan in May 2006. The first morning in our new home, my elder daughter and I looked out the window of her room on the ninth floor and stared in awe at Mount Ararat. Then I said, "Hey, let's go downstairs, I want to show you the cat I was telling you about." And of course she loved it.
A commentator in one of the local papers wrote this week that the cat had sent the message to Yerevan that a statue does not have to be an ode, a heroic representation of an admired person. And Yerevan appreciated that message, the commentator added. She had a point, though I would note that not all Armenian sculptures have been of the heroic variety. Ervand Kochar, the talented author of the most heroic statues in the city, Sasuntsi Davit and Vartan Mamikonian, also sculpted original representations of modern man - gnarled men with vacuous eyes and an urban landscape in their guts. That said, I agree that the Cat is in dialogue with the statues in the rest of the city. I think its message is this: Lighten up! Art can be fun.
Soon the cat had neighbors. Barry Flanagan's jaunty hares, Lynn Chadwick's gorgeous and geometric representations of the human figure, Paul Cox's colorful 2005 creation, Ahoy, among others. And they were all out there in the open, part of the new fabric of a city that was being transformed.
Cultural programs
The sculptures were only part of the story. Less than a week after I first showed my daughter the Cat, it was June 1, International Children's Day. Tamanyan Park was absolutely full of children from Yerevan and beyond, having fun, enjoying the cultural programming and entertainment offered by the foundation and its partners. We were all so happy to be living here.
Every other week that summer, we could go to Tamanyan Park and take in a concert or other open-air performance organized by the foundation. Some of the concerts featured local artists; others headlined performers from abroad. The summer evenings of tens of thousands of Yerevantsis and their guests were enhanced by this free programming.
With this programming, the museum had started yet another dialogue with the city: museums need not simply be exhibition spaces; they can offer cultural programs, it said. I was pleased to notice the next year, the Hovhannes Toumanyan Museum started offering an outdoor public event for children every year on the great writer's birthday.
So the Cafesjian Museum Foundation has been a significant part of the cultural life of Yerevan for some years now. And in these bite-sized pieces, it was fairly easy to appreciate the gift, which changed Armenia in little, subtle ways.
Lighten up!
Now, with the completion of this phase and the Grand Opening, the scale of the gift has become apparent. It is more than the sum of its impressive parts. It is transformative.
Decorating the white stone façade are fragrant formal gardens with tens of thousands of plantings. Hidden behind them is gallery after gallery of works on display. Like the Cat that heralded their arrival a few years ago, many of the works say, Lighten up; art can be fun.
You want cultural programming? You have the chief art critic of the New York Times, no less, and he's not just a big name. He's an interesting and charming man who - like the Cafesjian Center for the Arts - rejects the notion that art is a highbrow affair that regular people can't appreciate. He was the right choice to deliver a talk on opening day.
