56th Venice Biennale: Diaspora-Armenian Artists to be Featured at Ar

56th Venice Biennale: Diaspora-Armenian Artists to be Featured at
Armenian Pavilion

Marine Martirosyan
13:40, March 17, 2015

At the invitation of Armenia’s Ministry of Culture, Adelina von
Fürstenberg (née Cüberyan) will curate the Armenia’s pavilion at the
56th Venice Biennale, to take place from May 9 to November 22 of this
year.

Armenia’s pavilion will be handed over to Armenian artists residing
outside of Armenia, in a symbolic gesture to this year’s centennial of
the 1915 Genocide. Adelina told Hetq that the post is a tremendous
honor for her.

In 1993, for the 45th Biennale, she co-curated the Italian Pavilion
and the Russian Pavilion. On this occasion, the international Jury of
the Biennale awarded her a prize for her direction of Le Magasin –
Centre National d’Art Contemporain and her work at the School of
Curators.

Armenia’s pavilion this year will be located on the island of St.
Lazzaro, home of the Mkhitarist Brotherhood.

“Over the past three centuries the Mkhitarist Brotherhood has
contributed to preserving our unique cultural legacy which might
otherwise have been lost. The role of the brotherhood in this regard
is well known to Armenians in Armenia and the diaspora,” said the
renowned curator.

St. Lazzaro, as an exhibition space, is well known to Adelina. In 1990
she curated an exhibition of the works of Istanbul Armenian conceptual
artist Sarkis Zabunian.

Adelina, the granddaughter of the Armenian architect Dikran Kalfa
Cüberyan was also born in Istanbul.

In 1996 she founded Art for The World, an NGO associate to the UN
Department of Public Information for the diffusion and promotion of
the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through
the organization of exhibitions and events around the world.

Adelina has curated with ART for The World, at the occasion of the
Venice Biennale at the Armenian Monastery of San Lazzaro, solo shows
of Robert Rauschenberg (1997), Jannis Kounellis (2003) and Joseph
Kosuth (2007).

The works of sixteen Armenian artists, two of which work in pairs,
will be featured at St. Lazzaro.

At the behest of the Ministry of Culture, one artist from each
diaspora community has been selected: Haig Ayvazian (Lebanon), Anna
Boghigian (Egypt), Hera Buyuktashchian (Turkey),
Silvina Der-Meguerditchian (Germany/Argentina), Mkhitar Garabedian
(Belgium), Egaderina Kekisuan (Greece), Aram Djipilian (USA), Nina
Khachadourian (Finland/USA), Melik Ohanian (France), Mikayel
Ohanjanyan (Armenia) and Hrair Sarkisian (Syria).

At the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Adelina began to
get involved in the theme of the Armenian Genocide through her work
with Nigol Bezjian (Lebanon) and Rosana Palazian (Brazil).

“They were the first two artists to be invited to participate in this
year’s Armenian Pavilion (to bear the title “Arménité”-MM) at the
Venice Biennale. For the other fourteen, I did extensive research and
visited workshops. My selection was completed when I found artists
that were more closely related to my experience in contemporary art
and my belief that art is also a tool to inform. I believe that
artists from different horizons, with their innovative and emotional
works created through various expressive mediums, are able to convey
the spirit of Armenianism to wide segments of the biennale who, for
the most part, overlook our culture, language, letters and history,”
says Adelina.

One of the featured artists, Sarkis Zabunian, will participate in the
pavilions of Armenia and Turkey.

When I asked Adelina which country invited him first, the curator said
she’s curated more than ten exhibitions of his works over the past
thirty years.

“I respect and love Sarkis. When he said that he had also been
selected for the Turkish Pavilion, I thought that from a symbolic
viewpoint it would be a great challenge to be part of these two
pavilions,” Adelina said.

The curator noted that as a participant in the Turkish Pavilion Sarkis
would be representing conciliation, and as a participant in the
Armenian Pavilion, along with the seventeen other artists, he’d be
representing Armenianism.

Adelina explained to me that the project supersedes geographical
borders and that her selection of artists is an example of a
trans-national collection of remnants of a shattered identity.

The curator said that when the project went public at the end of
January it elicited a great deal of interest and was covered in a
variety of magazine including the Artforum (USA), Artribune (Italy),
Art Magazine (Germany) and Artnews (Istanbul).

Adelina is convinced that the theme of at the Armenian
Pavillion will be well received given that it has been professionally
prepared and with a sense of dedication.

“Of course, it’s a personal selection of the curator. Someone else
might have made a different selection. However, I have faith in the
abilities of the selected artists; in their innovative works based on
personal experience and knowledge, in their ability and huge talent to
transform their thoughts, memories and ideas, based on the universal
language of art, into something much more,” Adelina said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress