Light and enlightenment at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts

by Gregory Lima

Published: Friday December 04, 2009

Dale Chihouly's Persians installation in Gallery One of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts. Mkhitar Khachatryan

Jaroslava Brychtová in Yerevan. Vincent Lima

The following are some observations and reflections upon leaving Yerevan at the end of my fourth annual three-month visit.

A high point of this visit was the opening of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts. This new Center, in the reconstructed Cascade, with its gardens and galleries in the heart of Yerevan, is a stupendous achievement on a technological level.

The challenge now is to move forward with all aspects of the beautiful vision at the heart of the art center.

As I understand it, the Cafesjian Center for the Arts will begin to serve two major purposes: it will showcase international exhibitions, discussion, and interaction in an Armenian outreach to the modern art world, and it will serve as a stimulus and encouragement to Armenians both here and in the diaspora in the production of meaningful and challenging new artworks, carrying the Armenian cultural heritage forward in this new century.

To achieve this interaction at a fruitful level will be no small feat. It will need to be seriously addressed with a proactive attitude.

Clearly, the greatest strength of the Cafesjian Collection is the modern work in glass. When it finds its full place in the next phase of the center, the international significance might be better communicated to the likes of Michael Kimmelman, the chief art critic of the New York Times, who seemed more interested in a jaundiced, fact-confused view of the Armenian economy, ending with an old Soviet-era bromide presented as fresh.

Artful interplay of light

A significant fact of the glass sculpture on display in the Libenský Brychtová exhbit, "For Armenia," and again in Gallery One, is the artful interplay of light.

There were notable examples of glass sculpture from the students of the late Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, second-generation work in multiple new directions; Czech work, as well as work from Sweden, the United States, and Belgium. I was particularly impressed by the works of Dale Chihuly, both on the ceiling at the entrance to the Special Events Auditorium and in Gallery One. The sculptor has done notable work in Venice. Here, his Persians, in Gallery One, has multiple facets, interesting in themselves, and in the colorful patterns they throw on the wall. He seems to be implying a new kind of wall carpet where filaments of light replace woven silk.

The master work, however, is the Libenský Brychtová on display in "For Armenia." Here the interplay of light is captured once on the surface and again within the body of the artwork, creating new forms made visible in earlier, otherwise inaccessible depths of space. More than an interior, luminous tone, it is an exploration of new compositions in form and light.

Loving the light

Jaroslava Brychtová in our conversation volunteered that her sculpture seemed to love the light in Armenia, taking on hues and expression with a distinct personality it had not had elsewhere. She included in this observation pieces that are in Armenia but not yet on exhibit.

This is an observation that only she could offer and I, for one, was fascinated by it. If the sensitivity of her artwork captures part of the soul of Armenian light, at the Center we are at a truly significant new beginning.

It was only with the creation of the National Art Gallery in Yerevan in the 1920s that a distinct, institutional home was established for modern Armenian art. At that time, well before serious electrification, light still had a sacred quality. The light was particular to the land and was seen as inseparable. Light was given to the land by the grace of God. Armenian artists sought to capture in their landscapes this treasured light and hold it in love forever, whatever incursions were made on the Armenian patrimony, or perhaps because of it.

The Cafesjian Collection, Ms. Brychtová stated, includes more than a few of the highly celebrated architectural pieces she and her husband created. By their ability to withstand extremes of weather, one or more architectural pieces might have been, or in the future may be included in the center's sculpture garden with appropriate central placement.

Learning from the masters

It is glass as a plastic art material, and its ability to serve as a modern form of worked stone, capturing Armenian light in new, fruitful ways, that offers a promising new beginning - the more so if it can find functions in the combination of art and architecture in the burgeoning new constructions in Yerevan and elsewhere in Armenia. I would like to see Armenian architects find inspiration at the center and seriously explore a fresh, expanded role for glass in new work.

Among the admirable qualities of Libenský and Brychtová has been the openness of their methods, the fact that they helped to instruct anyone who wished to come and learn the techniques they developed, and in particular their readiness to work with industrial facilities. The Corning Glass Company in upper New York State, a world leader, was quick to pick this up. The center would do well to encourage similar artful connections with young Armenian industry.

What can be done in glass can also be done with other arts both alone and in cooperation with the many other existing cultural organizations in Armenia, helping to create or encourage new interactions of the arts here and abroad. An obvious way of starting is by defining limits, dampening expectations to what can be realistically done within structured programs, and simply by goodwill.

Very truly yours,
Gregory Lima
Yerevan