Cyland Foundation Inc.
ARE PROUD TO PRESENT:
OVERCOMING THE EVERYDAYNESS.
CONTEMPORARY ART FROM ARMENIA
in the LUDA Gallery, St Petersburg, Russia
22 JANUARY – 5 FEBRUARY 2015
Mokhovaya 42, St Petersburg, Russia
+ 7 999 034 60 99
+ 7 911 968 64 84
This project is about the city, focusing on those places where criticism and non-compliance with the general routine are possible. It’s about recognizing “moments” which, according to Henri Lefebvre, “raise questions about the relationships between social life and nature and erase the conventional boundary between nature on one side and society and culture on the other, showing that the individual cannot be separated from society.” How do these “social relationships and forms of individualized consciousness” disrupt everyday accepted norms? How do these “moments” contribute to the formation of this other, invisible city described by artists? How tangible and real is it? Or are the artists themselves creators of this marginal space, explored and owned by them?
Мгер Азатян, работающий с повествовательным материалом, представляет объекты, места, настроения и ситуации, которые наряду с документальным подходом Mger Azatyan, who works with narrative material, presents objects, places, moods, and situations that are extraordinarily poetic and always contain a certain narrative alongside a documentary approach. These complex picture-stories appear as indisputable truths uttered by the artist. They are witnesses to the unnoticed or simply remnants, traces of the past. In creating these images, Mger usually combines photography and text. However, in this project, he is represented by one of his few video works (from 2007), which tells about his favorite place, repeatedly referenced in his works: a space, a park in Yerevan, where since the early 90s, the flea market “Vernissage” has been functioning. On weekends and in good weather, it’s one of the busiest places in Yerevan. However, in Mger’s video work, this place appears in a completely different image. The deserted, snow-covered “vernissage” is striking in its tranquility and static nature. The artist highlights another side of this place, admiring the emptiness, the absence of hustle and bustle, the paused time, as if foreseeing its current fate. In 2014, part of this neglected park with non-functioning fountains was reconstructed and completely changed. The image created by the artist has now remained in history and joined the archives of the disappearing city.