After the collapse of Soviet Union, during the first years of independency, in contemporary art scene of Yerevan a unique intra-cultural interchange took place. A number of artists (Kiki, Hajian Armen, Sev Hendo, Ashot Ashot) left for the West, namely for the western cost of US or for Paris. Another group, mainly from eastern cost of US (Charlie Khachatryan, Markos Grigoryan, Sonia Ballasanyan, Kartash Onik) were making attempts to settle in Armenia, they, at least in the sense of creativity, are already integrated with the Armenian art scene. The leavers, as well as the comers were among the significant figures of Armenian contemporary art. Therefore, it is more important to find out what the leavers take with them and vice versa (i.e. what the comers bring instead). But before that, two words must be said about how the contemporary art scene obtained the abilities to re-actualize itself in such “traffic”.

Though in the last decade Armenian contemporary art had a tendency for extension, we must assume, however, that the latter is limited and has a partial acceptance. The characteristics of its development are bursts, breaches and hyperbolic transitions, rather than permanence, regularity and stability. But this is not only the feature of contemporary art, but also of national high art. The difficulties with communication are determined by its graft origin, as well as by that being spread out in the environment of popular creativity which is under the influence of various eastern factors. The basis of this popular culture (which has the legacy to be a national one) is the project of recreation of urban and political life. This project originated during 17-18th centuries in the Armenian Diaspora which was spread out from India to Holland and England. The initial bow of Armenian spread has been formed in early Middle Ages under the pressure of Turkish speaking nations which penetrated into Caucasus and Asia Minor from central Asia. Hopeless attempts, first of the military-political, then of cultural-economic elite of Armenia to leave the homeland and to move for neighboring countries, began after the collapse of great and gorgeous Ani; the last capital of Armenia which was on the international transit roads. This disintegrating influence (which took long time, for about two or three centuries) have also resulted from a fact that Ani has frequently been occupied, and that it was the zone of powerful earthquakes: all this took place before the eyes of spiritual and cultural elite of Armenia. In Diaspora the vision of Ani has been already transformed from the symbol of loss into the powerful stimulus of spiritual and intellectual existence. Hence the recreation of Ani became a chief historical project.

At the beginning of 20th century, when Russian Empire collapsed, the provincial center of Russian Armenia became the capital of Armenia. Now the vision of Ani is associated with the latter and even after the “Sovietization” it is still perceived to be the polarization point of cultural-creative powers. First in 20-30’s and then after the World War II (in 40-50’s) two occurrences of immigration took place. Comers brought customs, ideas, skills and values with them. Contemporary art scene of Yerevan was formed as a result of these two immigrations. The first founded an institutional system; the second imported a fresh stream into the visual arts. Besides these direct contributions to the Armenian contemporary art scene, there is also a huge influence of early 20th century Armenian artists working in Moscow and Paris, and in mid-century in New York as well (M. Sarian, G. Yakulov, E. Kochar, A. Gorky, and R. Nakian).

The very intra-cultural interchange taking place in 90’s is an expression of paradigmatic change. The leavers were the ones embodying a cultural dissidence of late 70’s and early 80’s. They were working in the sphere of Informel and Action Painting referring to some general loneliness and transcendence. Losing their oppositional positions of dissidence after the collapse of Soviet Union, they didn’t conform to the loss of an absolute idea. On the contrary, coming artists in their objects and installations rather wanted to represent the world tangibly, consequently from the positions of sensitivity and corporeality. They hope to find themselves and a ground for their works in the land of their ancestors. A transition was taking place; from an art determined by collective consciousness and illustrating Soviet reality (ideology), to the post-soviet art determined by collective unconsciousness and illustrating the very post-soviet reality (technology). This course was manifested in medial, as well as in expressional levels.

This transition was especially obvious in pictorial sphere. Among the thematic pairs of creation-work, object-sign, holiness-defilement, truth-falsehood there was the one with crucial significance. This concerns the bodily and mechanical principles in general, and the body and machine in particular. The treatment of this latter thematic pair prepares ground for transitional metaphors.

The treatment of the subject of machine in Soviet Union created a steady iconographic tradition. In the crucial events of the birth of Soviet power (Lenin’s first speech on armored train after his return from Petrograd, an attack on Winter Palace accompanied by the volley of shots from armored ship “Aurora”, etc.) the presence of machine witnesses the uniqueness of its role and the importance of its status. It seems to operate like an angel becoming a herald of the future. Besides this ritualistic model, its canonic representation has an intellectual content which remained unchanged throughout the whole existence of Soviet Union. Machine was considered to be the means of conquest and domination; cultural practices were mainly neglected.

In dealing with the subject of machine Armenian artists usually rely on this iconography. In the “quotations” made from arbitrary magazines, renowned works of art, books and motion pictures (in the works of Sargis Hamalbashyan, Ara Hovsepyan, Rouben Grigoryan, Karine Matsakyan and Sahak Boghossyan), the diachronic inclusions of the machine beget a sort of suspension. This breach, initiated by the presence of an instrument which belongs to different times, in fact is a trans-historical metaphor discovering the connection of times.

But sometimes this iconographic rule is exercised to dispute the very intellectual traditions; that is to say, artists make the two traditions to confront each other. Thus, Arman Grigoryan, who was one of the initiators and the main ideologist of the artistic movement “3rd Floor”, in 1987, entitled his painting To Cross the Borders by Bicycle. The canvas being covered by the prints of bicycle wheels referred to the unity of the world, human rights and civil values. This symbolic formulation expresses the revolutionary enthusiasm of changes taking place under the influence of convergence ideas. The Soviet border which was closed by iron veil now can be crossed, and one can reach to Budapest or Prague not by tank but by bicycle.

The collapse of Soviet Union gave birth to another widespread motive of body as well. The disappearance of the environment with the history of decades couldn’t be without any consequence; even though it was constructed on the violence against the individuals and on the violation of human’s political, intellectual and cultural rights. Retroactive remembrance of the social body became the most outstanding among those consequences. In the works of Armenian artists the treatment of the subject of body haven’t bypassed the pictographic and intellectual traditions which (as in the case of machine) were formed in Soviet Union. This pictography hardly ever represented man on its own. He/she always must be armored by some instrument, being engaged in some working process. In this canonic model the notions of man and worker were identical: man is the one who works. Work, in its turn, was the measurement of human existence where spiritual and bodily principles were the same.

These iconographic and intellectual traditions were implemented in order to express the feelings of redundancy of the body. One of the ways to do so was to make the different activities of labor and creation identical. To grow flowers in thimbles (by Karen Andreassian) is to disclose the uselessness of the labor, and the beautiful and endless embroidery (by Harutjun Simonyan) is an attempt to make this activity absolutely unique in its kind. In this identification we can see the ridiculous implementation of the moral-intellectual maxim, pointing on the interrelationship of labor and beauty which was offered up to Soviet citizens as a spiritual ordinance. But partial and half-done implementations of this ordinance (i.e. handicrafts and parasitism) were equally criminal. But in both these cases body’s vastness and inadequacy in comparison with the labor ironically record the redundancy of the latter in a new paradigm which is measured not by the horn or piston, but by thimble and needle.

Another widespread manifestation witnessing the feelings of redundancy of body is the construction of exaggerated confrontation of spirit and body as something sacred and defiled. This construction is an example of readiness to unveil the moral-intellectual traditions of a country which is already no more. The artists (Ararat Sargissyan, Samvel Saghatelyan, Grigor Khachatryan) seem to confront the ordinances by inertia, ordinances which connect the socialist realism with the medieval religious-ethical traditions of Christianity in rejecting the cult of body through dealing with the moral legacy of depicting the body.

But the problem of body and machine in Armenian contemporary art is not solely connected with the social political collapse, i.e. with the fall of Soviet Union, it also refers to the problems of merchandized and materialized world. The technological revolutions of 20th century made it easy for humans to get rid of material chains. This relaxation, being a triumph of modernist strategy, at the same time, destroyed its positions, for it gives artists possibility to re-conceptualize their former readiness to end up with their relations with heritage, organizations and values in order to find their creative identity. Thus, regular references to archives, history, museums, memory and remembrances are not made due to some spiritual activity, but in order to find the means of narration based on the oblivion, repetition and reconsideration of time (Hovhannes Margarian, Arthur Sargissian).

The main conceptual issue being formulated within the scope of paradigmatic theme of machine and body concerns identity. During social-political revolutions and cultural transformations man experiences a deepest crisis of self-visualization and self-evaluation. This crisis had an overall nature during the whole course of 20th century being expressed in all the levels of identity, i.e. individual, collective and general.

First reason for putting forward the problem of identity in the West was a gradual raise of the role of its subject, i.e. of an individual. This shift in contemporary western society is determined by the deep fermentations which through the weakening the institutions of socialization, that is to say, the family, school, church and state, make the individual a central figure of society’s structure.

In post-Soviet republics this process started in new and very peculiar conditions after the collapse of Soviet Union. It is marked by the situation where people lose (often unwillingly) the structures providing them social stability and foreseeable security (working collectives, party-organizations) even through the limitation of their own freedom.

In the case of artists, issues of identity are directed to its third, i.e. general-philosophical dimension in order to find out what is it to be human being in general. In this sense two opposite directions of the search of body can be pointed out; ferocity and eroticism. In these vectors being originated from two different strategies of criticism and play there is no room for individual-speculative manifestations of identity.

The first is to go back to nature and infancy, to the discovery of ones own body (Anna Barseghyan, Grigor Khachatryan-Norair Aivazyan, Azat Sargissian). The primeval issue, the ferocity and nakedness become metaphors of a sensuality which is confronted to the numbness determined by the mechanical intermediation of human relations (David Kareyan).

Another way (which passes through mediation) of establishing the identity is the way of alienation and metamorphosis. Here the border between object and subject is being erased and the difference between sexes disappears. From now on they are united by some total net, by the bright and unwinking eye through which they can change their places (Vahram Galstyan, Arevik Arevshatyan). On the basis of this incorporeal sensuality the environment of fractal identities is being spread. Objects, appearances and organisms don’t have any meaning peculiar to their species, but are mere sexual practices of biotechnological self-cloning and temporality. Is this identical to exhaustion and death? As Pierre Levy puts it, in virtual reality they don’t coincide; new archives and barns are being created when the light joins the script and the consumption becomes the same with reproduction. The two types of pre-speculative and post-speculative (or post-mirror, as Baudrillard puts it) identities do not describe the individual anymore, but do describe the representatives of community. They appear in games and myths and establish themselves through taking an action. The source of their intensification is the frequency of Gesture which through being transmitted to daily actions gains the power of custom becoming the simple means of inflaming the passion of existence and of restarting the life.

What is indicated by the priority given to these types of identity in Armenian contemporary art? From my point of view it embodies a human type forced to experience the revolutionary explosion which gave birth to technological reality out of the ideological one. This human type, therefore, becomes the carrier of an experience of collective transition.

Nazareth Karoyan
11.01.03

Translated from Armenian by
Vardan Azatyan