VI International Gumri Biennale

6th International Gumri Biennale, Armenia. September 7 to October 30, 2008
Curators Anna Barseghyan and Isabelle Papaloïzos. Coordination Tsolak Topchyan, Sargis Hovhannesyan

The theme of the 6th Biennial concerned the matter of analyzing past and present events and transforming them in history; the linear conception of history, that prevailed until recently is replaced by the notion of parallel histories. Artists draw in the past and they reinterpret it, proposing a personal point of view on a history to come, one builds up progressively through these interpretations.

curators and collaborations
azat sargsyan directeur artistique, gcca gyumi center of contemporary art | dominique mason et vazgen pahlavuni-tadevosyan, ararart initiative group, france | georg schöllhammer et hedwig saxenhuber, springerin, autriche | maria tsantsanoglu, musée d’art contemporain de thessalonique, grèce | anna barseghian et isabelle papaloïzos, utopiana, armenie-suisse | cde – contemporary danish exhibitions | iris meller-westermann, moderna museet, suède | iaspis-international artists studio program in sweden | domenique abensour et nazareth karoyan, aica-art critics assosation in armenia | gallery 25, gyumri | susanna gyulamiryan, art and cultural studies laboratory-armenia | maria do mar fazenda, portugal

SITE I
Artists in Residence: Andreas Kressig, Laurent Faulon, Delphine Reist

On this worksite, the three artists presented the activity they had in common, to have carried out work “in situ,” making use of salvaged objects or those of the local space. The process of elaboration and the actualization was an integrated part of the work. The particular context of production was more or less apparent in the artistic work presented. But, whatever the degree of visibility of a political or social message, the conditions of production are in fact dependent on the sociopolitical context, and in this sense, they commit to an interpretation that takes into account these aspects, allowing to question their process of production. The three artists then each took hold of a room in a building still in construction, a worksite in which each worked for a duration of three weeks.

Delphine Reist presented three pieces of work. The first — a table covered with a white embroidered tablecloth on which rest three cups with spoons moving in them — plays on the idea of the pause. The artist had noted the frequency and the importance of ritual of this time of recreation in the daily regulation of work during her time in Gyumri. For the second piece, she arranged on the ground a series of buckets purchased at the market; some are in unconventional forms, resembling unconvincing basins. As for the third piece, the artist observed the care brought to the installation of interiors, notably the curtains. Here, in her third piece, she has arranged curtains that are tinged with red and that release a wine odor. Undoubtedly, Delphine Reist creates a strange space. What can come of these galvanized buckets in their elastic forms? What purpose do they serve? And these spoons that turn by themselves in cups? And these curtains that are soaked with red wine which flows via an automated circuit? This small world, where objects take on lives, offers a shifting and poetic vision on daily practices. It is not the objects themselves that are absurd but rather the mutual relations they entertain. Delphine Reist proposes a new grammar, while disturbing certain roles and conventional relationships. Rendered autonomous by this process, the objects become actors of another representation. One can think of the universe of Jacques Tati or Roman Signer.

Laurent Faulon. A stunning glass chandelier, worthy of a ball of Sissi the empress, holds court in the middle of Faulon’s room. The uneven ground is re-covered in linoleum giving the impression of a wooden floor. On one side of the piece, a wall is covered in wire netting upon which a child’s black suit is hung, while on the other side, rests a pair of men’s evening shoes in a style common in Gyumri. Not only the bottom of the suit has been reinforced in concrete, but also the shoes leaning against the wall are filled with concrete. Likewise, pieces of the chandelier lacking in splendor were plunged in cement, quite obviously in the wheelbarrow full of concrete placed just below. The concrete in the wheelbarrow hadn’t set; it was kept in a liquid state by a propellor that constantly stirred the mixture. This ballroom scene plays on our expectations and makes fun of our disappointments. Between fluidity and being fixed, the scene overcomes the action of initiating provocation (one that yields alarm), while highlighting the importance of movement and reflection. Besides, it is better to keep the trampling to the ground than risk stumbling. This intervention not only gives rise to a series of questions on place and context, but also uses the contrasts as intellectual stimulation, by displacing our usual viewing references.

Andreas Kressig displayed his work in three spaces. In his artistic practice, there is an ongoing concern to produce work in a given time-space and to resort to a preference for used and salvaged objects. In the first space, a suspended wire netting from a building site serves as a sort of radar whose dimensions fill the space. Above, cracks in the ceiling open straight through to the outside. When raising your head, what you see through these cracks is a very big circle on two levels covered with worksite materials and decorated with various salvaged objects — plastic packets, pine cones, and so on. The viewer cannot go to this space; by peering through the cracks in the ceiling, she is able to view only one part of this huge lamp. The third space, which is more solemn, combines all sorts of objects and reproductions of the landscape taken from the video game “Hummer”. Here disorder reigns; it is difficult to identify the function of the space, something between a restaurant, a gallery, a prison or a basement used as a place of survival. In accordance with the relative arrangement associated with different elements, a possible function of the space becomes clear; however, just as soon as it becomes apparent, it is invalidated. It is important to note that a space does not carry within itself a funtion or an inherent usage, these are manufactured according to the activities that are practiced within that space. This miscellaneous and chaotic universe seems to be a projection of images captured by radar and cast like a memory with its incoherences and grey areas. Andreas Kressig has created a spectacular transformation of the architectural space, and he actively engages the viewer in his way of grasping it.

SITE II
Merkourov Museum

Béatrice Graf, musician and performer, took possession of the Merkourov Museum’s surrounding area. She opted for the interior courtyard and the balcony, as well as the apple tree in the museum garden, to conduct her rehearsals and performances. She delivered a series of experiments in sound developed from everyday objects, which were recovered and diverted from their original function, that captivated those in attendance and evoked great curiosity. With brilliance and sensitivity, Béatrice Graf combined the areas of sound experimentation — transforming them in scenes which subtly work on the relationship between sound and image — with periods of more standard music, but always surprizing us with the means of creating sounds (pans, seashells, cardboard boxes, apples, etc.). Bref was a success that delighted the public. The two other Swiss artists, as well as a number of Armenian artists, presented their work inside the museum.

Joëlle Flumet presented her work in the room dedicated to the memory of sculptor Serguei Merkourov. An official sculptor in the Soviet Union, Merkourov always created work for those in positions of power, registering his art in the tradition of magnificence and representation. Most notably, he has sculpted the faces of a number of important people upon their death, those who lived through the soviet era, such as Lenin, Stalin, and so on. The Museum proposes a reconstruction, at once personal and professional, of the life of the sculptor, presenting his work, as well as family photos and objects from his studio, such as stools, a radio or a table. This scenery served as a setting for displaying Joëlle Flumet’s work. As we know, artists have a tendency to remove and purge in order to arrive at an image — what becomes the essential icon. Here, Flumet decided to take away (to subtract, if you will) by concealing a series of objects that she covered with brown sticks, made-to-measure and stitched together. In this sense, one can clearly distinguish the form of the objects which are hidden, but nevertheless present. Their forms, literally abstracted, impose their absence alongside the busts and other sculptures by Merkourov. In the reconstruction of this studio thus transformed, Joëlle Flumet arranged a series of drawings, which she drew following an artist residency in Yerevan in 2006. From her memories of this recent past, she retained exemplary images of the changes taking place in Armenia. These she has thus perceived as being parallel with the ways of life which resemble ours. There remains, nevertheless, a series of objects or of presence, like this lying dog, irreducible to any assimilation or comparison. If the act of introducing fragments of contemporary life in this museal context is a gesture of breaking with the past, it also delivers global aspirations.

Ghost Archive Research Project. This title evokes a paradox. When we say “archives” we often imagine an authoritarian construction, immobile and invariable of documents, numbered shelves and rooms, something that is more or less the domain of historiography. But, as Foucault explained, “What, in history, escapes history, that is not universal, motionless, which everyone, all the time, can think, say or want. What escapes history is the instant, the break, the tearing, the interruption...” The ghost is in the break, it’s the repressed, the not-lived, the unfair one, crouched in the fold. This is our memory, condemned to a mechanism of forgetfulness and of a reminder. The ghost is what escapes the archive; it is a revenge of memory on history.

The documents, the objects, the writings, and the images included in this project are composed between two poles: on one side, they testify on the individualities that remained or slipped within the breaks of history, between the pages. But on the other side, these are not only tracks/marks but things that must be studied for themselves. A double look aimed at once at the practicality of these things and that which is behind them. Thus, the questions hide themselves, which maybe in this moment surpasss us, but they provoke us, question us, and we, interested, go to research this “lost time”.

This research combines with the constitution of experience. An experience is a process where we don’t know the results from the beginning. Therefore, that constantly questions our approach, our expectations, and so on, and this is the only way to render possible new manners of creating and receiving art. In one of the pieces of the Merkourov Museum, in collection, strange in comparison with the other pieces, where, very officially, the funeral masks of Soviet “geniuses” are presented, facts as early as the beginning of the Soviet Union, we specially laid out the “Ghost Archive.”

Ruth Baettig intervenes in this project by inserting her work in the form of a video documentation of performances executed while in residence in Yerevan in 2006. Ruth Baettig had carried out a performance series titled “City Guide” with the assistance of a tourist guide, which allowed her to discover different historic monuments in the public sphere. The interventions of the artist on these different monuments and in these spaces transformed the look that we often cast on them. One of the focal points of Baettig’s artistic practice deals with the experience of public space. During her walks, she located/spotted/marked the places with strong symbolic potential, such as those great places constructed in another time or those immense erected statues, for example. She chose those places to execute her performances. A figure dressed in white runs through this space, climbs the monuments without prior notice under the gaze of curious onlookers, sometimes dumbfounded but never indifferent. This figure disrupts the usual practice of the place in question and proposes another representation.

The work of Arpi Adamyan is a device/system/plan of book with an inlay of animations. In this book titled “Where,” the author weaves a dialogue between her fictional letter addressed to the sculptor Aytsemnik Urartu (1899–1974) and a letter found in the archive of Aytsemnik Urartu addressed to the politician Anastase Mikoyan (1895–1978), and the other part with her small animation, which opens on every page, titled “I am here but I’m not an artist”. In her letter, Aytsemnik Urartu questions injustice of which is a victim of work. She doesn’t understand for what reason she was not chosen to produce the statue of S. Chahumian, even though she had obtained the first prize in the competition in 1928. She does not mention the name Serguey Merkourov in her letter, but we know that this sculpture was created by Merkourov. Thus, this letter appears ghostly to the Merkurov Museum. In her own letter, Arpi Adamyan, presents her own problems and questionings as a female artist located in Armenian cultural surroundings today.

Lusine Talalyan and Astghik Melkonyan began many quests and interviews in order to find an artist who had left the art scene in the 90s. They discovered the character of the artist Arax and strongly identified with her rebellious image and began looking for her. During this project they rediscover the artist in question and all three separately create works inspired by this experience known as “searching for Arax Nerkarayan.” Talalyan positions two monitors showing two films in dialogue. One of the films plays between a series of images of memories that stops a moment on an image of a camera. As the artist explains it, it’s as if the camera erases our memory while taking it all into account. In the other film, the artist walks and lies down on the middle white line of a central street in Yerevan. The body of the artist, like a strange body, plays between two limits, that of the street and of her own body. A relationship among image, memory, instrument, the limits of the street and her own body as the only space of living memory.

A desire keeps this memory alive, like an active archive between her own body and the public body. In the form of visitors’ cards, piles introduce themselves in this closet of the Ghost Archive. These are effectively visitors’ cards, but with fragments of sentences such as “that can disappear,” “there was no problem,” “nothing is changed,” “that had to happen like that,” and so on. Astghik Melkonyan pulled these fragments from interviews with the artists of Arax’s generation. They have now become separate sententences, which provoke an imaginary one, and which leaves us with the effect of having already heard these sentences.

At last, the work of Arax herself. On the photo of her own work “Us and Our Mountains” (oil on canvas), advertising figures/characters well-known from the 90s were replaced by the pictures of Lusine, Anna, Astghik and Arax herself, as if they were old images, images of an archive. With this act Arax plays and re-plays between the past, the present — and places in doubt the original and the copy. This act goes through the assembling and the dismantling of time so that the ghost as she was has “become” a “reality.” All the artists fulfilled/achieved post cards and we included these in the ghost archive. Each post card makes an appearance and gives a sign that we could put in relation with the past or the present, with a history or an imaginary one produced by this reality. The statue of Mother Armenia, that had replaced the figure of Stalin, was replaced with that of Marilyn Monroe. A beautiful buckle which places an irony and which gives envy to say “uff! I don’t know,” as written by artist Tsolak Topchian on the wall in the ghost archive and one collects his breath.