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100

years

100

arts

mission

The Armenian Genocide has left an irreversible trace in our history and in our spirits and the reflection of grief, yearning, hope is woven in chain in the Armenian fine arts. When human languages is powerless to express what happened in 1915, the language of art does have the power to do so. Different generations of Armenian famous artists have continuously addressed the great iniquity and the artworks dedicated to the Armenian Genocide have always had their unique places in their art. Armenian artists greatly contributed to the global acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide thought their art. Many of these works have been exhibited to public but even more of them are unknown till today.

100 years

CULTURAL GENOCIDE

Acts and measures undertaken to destroy the culture of a nation or an ethnic group is called "cultural genocide". Many facts prove that simultaneous with the massacres and deportation of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the government of the Young Turks masterminded and implemented systematic destruction of the material testimonies of the Armenian civilization.

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

A genocide is the organized extermination of a nation aiming to put an end to their collective existence. The extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding regions during 1915-1923 is called the Armenian Genocide. Those massacres were masterminded and perpetrated by the government of Young Turks and were later finalized by the Kemalist government.

100 arts

The anguish of the Armenian Genocide, which is being reborn with every Armenian, has its own reflection in the Armenian fine arts. Many Armenian well known artists have created artworks both in Armenia and in Diaspora that are the speaking witness of the Armenian great pain, loss and yearning. These artworks are also ode to the Armenian viable genes, will power of giving birth, living and creation. Genocide is the type of crime that does have any expiration date. Human speech is sometimes powerless in expressing those things that are possible to express only through art. These 100 artworks will continuously tell the world about the unhealed wound of the Armenian, millions of innocent victims, demolished heartlands, bowed churches, lost homeland and infinite belief. The power of art is undeniable and artworks are eternal.

Artist:

Eduard Isabekyan

Title:

Rapture 2, 1941

Location:

Artist's Family Collection

Artist: Eduard Isabekyan
Title: Rapture 2, 1941
Location: Artist's Family Collection

Eduard Isabekyan: "The world is full of misfortunes, if a human being doesn’t have to experience it all, but still he does. And the worst part is that one gets a great part of it… And what happened to us wasn’t a misfortune so as to stop hurting, get closed up by dust, it wasn’t a pain that you could tolerate by clenching the teeth… This is an incurable wound, the pain of brain, the anguish of soul..."

Artist:

Haroutiun Gakentz

Title:

The Portrait of a Writer Vivan Tjitejian, 1957

Location:

National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Artist: Haroutiun Gakentz
Title: The Portrait of a Writer Vivan Tjitejian, 1957
Location: National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Armen Yesayants (PhD in Art History): "The anguish of the entire nation is centered in the art of Haurtyun Kalentz. In the artistic heritage of Kalents the theme of Genocide was depicted both directly and indirectly: Kalentz said: There in the foreign country, Armenian faces seem to be a part of the motherland. For me the portrait is also landscape and much more than that. The portraits are my motherland."

Artist:

Vano Khodjabekyan

Title:

Yerevan, the Orphans Receive Meal, while the Emigrants Outside Starve, 1918

Location:

National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Artist: Vano Khodjabekyan
Title: Yerevan, the Orphans Receive Meal, while the Emigrants Outside Starve, 1918
Location: National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Vano Khodjabekyan was deeply concerned about the daily life of the emigrants. "Yerevan, the orphans receive meal, while the emigrants outside starve" drawing belongs to the series of graphics created to the theme of Genocide. The title seems to be telling everything about the sufferings of the artists, the disruption of the mood that depicts the happiness for the survived ones who are saved now and mourn for all those whose fates are still full of tribulations.

Artist:

Ararat Sarkissian

Title:

Earth (Image III), 2003

Location:

Artist's Collection

Artist: Ararat Sarkissian
Title: Earth (Image III), 2003
Location: Artist's Collection

In Sarkissian’s landscapes, nature, manifesting itself in the mysterious appearance of runes, elicits in the spectator an irrepressible desire to decipher the imagery. What is presented to us is not a puzzle but rather a miracle, at which we gaze in a trance-like state, losing ourselves in the experience and dissolving our ego.

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SHARED ARTS section.
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shared arts

Artist:

Adriana Angolian