“2012-”
This project has been developed through a series of ongoing discussions about the role of contemporary art education in Armenia.
September 14-28, 2012
Curatorial Statement:
The project and its artworks were developed over 2012 through an initiative of Marianna Hovhannisyan in collaboration with the Armenian Open University, Department of Fine Arts, for the Gyumri International Biennale: “2012”.
Both in the choice of method and outcomes, “2012-“ considers the Biennale’s theme, “2012” by way of the positions a young generation of artists chooses to address it with. Working with three young artists from the Department of Fine Arts, the intention was to have a shared developmental process that would shape a dialog over the year, supported by research-based practices. This led to an agreed-upon project outline for realizing works through the narratives of family history and by that to articulate the theme of Biennale.
If in the project the personal narratives offer to initiate passages from a familiar, secure space, it is only in order to work with the discovery of where they might lead in this development of educational methods joined to the artistic and creative processes. Thus, while personal, the scale is greater, connecting to education, language, history, memory and identity, where the year 2012 is considered isolated neither from past nor future.
The “2012-” exhibition presents within the Biennial a point of overlap between three different art institutional spaces with their perspective and histories: the Gyumri Biennale and AOU Department of Fine Arts, which represent two different, direct outcomes from the 1990s artist initiatives, and the Gyumri State Academy of Fine Arts that provides classical art education.
This suggests a point in 2012 to observe, rethink and imagine what kinds of critical tools or outlooks the arts education provides a younger generation to understand their position from which to not only register and react to the contemporary moment – 2012 –
but draw their perspectives out from and help produce the space of an ongoing relation between knowledge and practice.
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Supporters:
Gyumri Centre of Contemporary Art
Gyumri State Academy of Fine Arts
Armenian Open University, Department of Fine Arts
Curator: Marianna Hovhannisyan
Artists: Benik Karapetyan, Liana Khachatryan, Ernest Voskanyan