From emerging Armenian artists across the globe to Armenian-American talent in the United States, [Art Speak] will spotlight the dynamic and diverse Armenian art world and more.
Listen to the article.
Like a proverbial ghost in the machine, curators are seemingly simultaneously everywhere and nowhere to be seen. Yet from the initial proposal for almost any art exhibition—be it at a museum, foundation or gallery—to its research, marketing and installation, the curator’s hand is omnipresent as they conceive and coordinate almost the entire show. None do it better than Choghakate Kazarian, a brilliant art historian born in Armenia and raised in Paris, whose work has recently graced some of the world’s most important institutions. Her personal elegance and style—Kazarian is preternaturally stylish and could easily be mistaken for a runway model—are evident in everything she touches, from her minimalist-inspired home with lovely selections of contemporary art to the global imprint she is leaving with her institutional work.
Kazarian, who specializes in modern and contemporary art, holds an MA in Art History from the École du Louvre (Paris), an MA in philosophy from La Sorbonne, and a PhD in Art History from London’s renowned Courtauld Institute of Art, a training ground of sorts for great curators. Despite being barely 40 years old, she has already held positions as a curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and has curated exhibitions on leading contemporary artists Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Karel Appel and Henry Darger. She has also written the catalogues which accompany these exhibitions, as well as essays on postwar, contemporary, and outsider art. She is, to put it mildly, a busy woman who divides her time between New York City, Paris/Europe and Yerevan.
As Kazarian explains, curating is no easy task, as a typical show can take upwards of two to three years to plan and produce. The duties evolve throughout the schedule. The first stage mostly involves research, says Kazarian: “I spend a lot of time at the library, looking into archives, and seeing as many works as possible because images are not the real thing.” After coming up with a general concept, she then gets in touch with the main partner for the exhibition: “In my case,” she says, “it’s usually the artist’s estate or foundation.” The second phase includes coming up with a checklist for the exhibition, locating the works, and negotiating with potential lenders, be they museums or private collectors. Kazarian is a skilled diplomat who must try to convince museums and collectors to lend her their works. As she puts it: “This is the key aspect in modern art exhibitions and takes a lot of time, as does preparing the content of the exhibition catalogue.” Not to be forgotten, after all this work has been done, the show must then be mounted. This includes writing all the wall texts, and finally overseeing the physical installation of the exhibition. “In parallel I work with the publication team on the exhibition catalogue to approve and edit the texts, as well as write my own essay, choose images, and work with the graphic designer,” Kazarian states. Once an exhibition is up, a curator’s work isn’t yet done, as she must also conduct press interviews, and give exhibition tours to select visitors or groups
So how did Kazarian pick this wonderfully complex and challenging career? As with many things, it all started at home. Along with Archi Galentz and his father Haroutiun, and Arshak and Ararat Sarkisian, Kazarian is part of contemporary Armenian artistic royalty of sorts. Her father Achot Achot (Kazarian) is a renowned artist in Armenia, is best known for his fascinating “afactum” photographs and paintings that play with our notions of reality, time and how we represent both the profane and the spiritual: “I grew up hanging out in the exhibitions of the 3-րդ հարկ or 3rd Floor Group, of which my father was a founding member in 1987…My entire family was involved in his work. The other day I accidently discovered a photo, by the great Zaven Khachikyan, of the famous 3rd Floor performance Hail to the Union of Artists from the Netherworld: the Official Art Has Died (1988), to which both my parents participated. How cool is that?”
Kazarian’s parents encouraged her to pick a profession early on. “I knew that I wanted to do something with art,” she explains. “I loved the work of Paolo Uccello and I had the chance to see his work in person at the Louvre. I used to hang out there during school holidays because we had no money to go on vacation and French museums are free for underaged visitors.” Like many people who excel at what they do, Kazarian quickly fell in love with her métier: “During my studies at the École du Louvre, I decided to become a museum curator because I love museums and it’s a perfect combination of intellectual and practical skills.” This is more complicated than it sounds, because in France one needs to earn the very Gallic-sounding title of “conservateur du patrimoine,” which can be only obtained by placing at the top of a highly competitive national competition. Then comes the easy part, Kazarian assures us: “The lucky few who are selected attend classes in Museum Studies at the Institut National du Patrimoine. They teach you about conservation, curating, museum law, museum ethics and such.” In the end, regardless of the country one lives in, art historical knowledge is still the key. “Although the work implies a lot of other practical skills,” Kazarian avers, “it is still about art.”
Dresses designed by Karl Lagerfeld in the 1960s and 1970s for Chloé. Installation view of “Mood of the Moment: Gaby Aghion and the House of Chloé,” at the Jewish Museum, New York, October 13, 2023 – February 18, 2024. Photo by Dario Lasagni.
While I have only known Kazarian for a little over a year, I have been impressed by her three most recent shows. As a fashionista of sorts who worked at the Rue Cambon for Karl Lagerfeld after college, I was enraptured by her 2023 exhibition “Mood of the Moment: Gaby Aghion and the House of Chloé” at New York City’s Jewish Museum, which featured clothing and all manner of sketches and photographs, as well as fascinating biographical details about Aghion, an Egyptian Jew who founded the House of Chloé in 1952 after moving to Paris. Approached by museum director Claudia Gould, Kazarian wrote a proposal that quickly won her over. “The exhibition spanned from the early years of the brand to recent creations,” she recalls. “It was exciting to work with such pristine sources, as this was the first museum-commissioned exhibition on the history of Chloé. I wanted to bring light to all the wonderful women designers who made Chloé, including Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo.” Deciding on how to present a house with over 70 years of existence wasn’t easy. Should the focus be fashion historical or instead accentuate purely visual elements? “I came up with a creative way to display the garments: instead of trying to recreate the body on mannequins I preferred to show them in their ‘storage state’, on hangers to highlight their light structure and fabric—so typical of Chloé. To obtain that ‘effortless’ display, I had to work with specialists to imagine a conservation-friendly but invisible system,” Kazarian says.
Works by Offenbach (Grigor Gyulezyan) and Achot Achot. Installation view of “New Matter: The Sergei Djavadian Collection of Armenian Abstraction,” National Gallery of Armenia, 2024.
Photo by Gevorg Elmasakyan.
Another fascinating show curated by Kazarian this past summer in Yerevan: “New Matter: the Sergei Djavadian Collection of Armenian Abstraction” at the National Gallery of Armenia. As the curator relates, this exhibition came to fruition because she wanted to preserve this unique treasure trove of Armenian contemporary art from the 1980s and early 1990s: “The collection was mostly forgotten, except by the artists who participated in the adventure. The fact that the collector and the artists left Armenia also contributed to that oblivion. I heard about it through my father who is one of the 6 artists in the collection which also includes works by Kiki, Sev, Offenbach, Armén Rotch, and Martin Petrosyan.” The collection also contained works by these artists shown in exhibitions organized by Offenbach in his “Bunker” studio where artists gathered in the early 90s after distancing themselves from the 3rd Floor: “For more than two years, I dived into archives and interviewed the artists and Djavadian to understand the story behind this unique collection.” In fact, Djavadian is one of only a small international coterie of Armenians who have actively collected contemporary art, Armenian or otherwise, that include Joan Agajanian Quinn, Shoghag Hovanessian, Gerry Cafesjian and gallerists Tony Shafrazi and Larry Gagosian. “Djavadian decided that instead of buying works he would give the artists a monthly stipend, no strings attached,” Kazarian explains. “In exchange, they gifted him their art, all in a spirit of camaraderie. It happened at a time when Soviet Armenian artists weren’t very familiar with art-as-commerce.” And here we come to another important role that the curator plays in helping to identify and help to preserve art for generations to come: “It was clear to me that these 42 works constitute an important chunk of our national heritage and need to stay in Armenia in a museum, so people can see and study them. Djavadian’s collection acts as a time capsule of that transitional era in Armenian art and history.” Kazarian collaborated on the exhibition with another curator Vigen Galstyan, and they are now working together on a catalogue that will place these works in their proper historical context: “I believe it is a very important step for the museum historicizing/ researching the historical side of contemporary art. After all, the 80s are already part of history.”
Choghakate Kazarian immersed in Ferdinand Spindel’s Hole in Home (1966), presented in the exhibition “Immersion. Les origines: 1949-1969” at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, 2023.
©Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne
A third and final show that Kazarian recently curated “Immersion: Les origines: 1949-1969” at the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne in Switzerland involved creating an exhibition with the museum’s curator Camille Lévêque-Claudet. “The show was born out of our discussions regarding the experience of art during Covid and the need to experience it in real flesh-and-blood reality,” Kazarian notes. Although the exhibition may at first appear in tune with the trend of immersivity, it was built as a reaction against exhibitions such as the immersive Van Gogh or Klimt. “These highly bankable exhibitions distort original paintings into immersive projections, but they weren’t meant for that,” Kazarian says. “We wanted to show proper artworks and not a spectacle created by a company for profit. We considered the experimental nature of the genre and included Lucio Fontana, Bruce Nauman, Robert Morris, Judy Chicago, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Fabio Mauri—all artists from the Space-Age era (1949-1969) who sought to go beyond traditional media. We also wanted to include artists from different backgrounds.” The exhibition is the first dedicated exclusively to a historical overview of immersive art, i.e. work that is meant to be entered into by the visitor. The show was challenging for different reasons. As Kazarian relates, in the case of Ferdinand Spindel’s 1966 Hole in a Home, for example, the artist was dead and the estate could not be located: “So we had to work like detectives to recreate the installation made of pink soft folds based on black and white archival photos!” The exhibition was a huge success, breaking attendance records and attracting many first-time visitors to the museum.
So, is it possible to isolate those qualities that make a curator or exhibition successful? To answer this difficult question, Kazarian draws a parallel to the fashion world: “Curating an exhibition or editing a book is like couture. There is no readymade formula: it’s an artisanal, custom-made process. It’s all about maintaining high artistic standards while dealing with practical issues such as budgets, space limitations, securing loans, etc…” Kazarian is a natural multitasker who can simultaneously juggle many responsibilities. A good eye helps as well. “Although I base my curatorial work on extensive research, an exhibition is a fully immersive and sensorial experience,” says Kazarian. “If you need to read tons of wall texts to ‘understand’ the exhibition concept, then the curator has failed.” Being Armenian and French and in command of several languages helps as well. False modesty aside, a non-negligible part of a curator’s success lies in their sheer brilliance and ability to find the new in the old, and to break stereotypes or perceptions about particular artists. “I make historical artists relevant again by looking closely at what they have done instead of rehashing old tropes,” Kazarian explains. “For instance, my Fontana retrospective changed the game for an artist who was mostly known for his slashed canvases; after this exhibition that put an emphasis on his sculptural work, everybody was crazy about his sculptures.”
Which brings us to Armenia, a country that Kazarian holds dear to her heart. While Armenia has many talented artists, the country still lags in creating world-class curators and exhibitions, as if Armenians do not yet fully understand the importance of cultural capital or collecting. Things are changing, but slowly. The Yerevan Academy of Fine Arts, for example, under the leadership of art historian Vardan Azatyan, is currently developing courses in curatorial studies, in tandem with select galleries such as Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice. As Kazarian notes, there are still only a handful of serious scholars working on theoretical, historical and historiographical aspects of 20th century Armenian art, such as the members of the Ashot Johannissyan Research Institute. The curator states with pride that “Armenia has an incredibly rich and complex cultural heritage but while medieval art is studied for example, there is limited scholarly work on 20th century art. There is currently no museum where you can learn about the 3rd Floor group, for example, although it is considered the most important contemporary art movement…Similarly, there is not much in terms of art historical publications. Albums often contain inaccurate information where names are misspelled, dates are lacking, sources are not mentioned, etc…We need more historical studies, with accurate information instead of lyrical praise.” Kazarian is also lucid about Armenia’s unique history and relation to art. “Although it’s useful to adapt some Western methodologies, it’s important for us to write our own history and not try to fit into a Western narrative that has little to do with our own situation,” she explains. From Kazarian’s mouth to the ears of God. The curator also seemingly bears some of the guilt that diasporans or Armenian expats often feel towards their culture when they have been forced to leave the country, a problem that can however easily be remedied. “Now that I have established myself, both professionally and personally, I am ready to look at Armenia,” Kazarian says. “The Djavadian collection was my wakeup call that I need to be more involved in preserving and promoting Armenian art.” As usual Kazarian is currently busy working on several upcoming publications on Albert Pinkham Ryder and Félix Vallotton (her essay on the early years of Jackson Pollock just came out) while she is conducting new research on Armenian art. The role of the art critic and of the curator both involve bringing together intellectual and visual ideas, and displaying them in the most powerful way possible, whether they are appealing or disturbing to viewers. And it is precisely at this intersection of the visual and the intellectual that the depth and breadth of Kazarian’s work most astonishes.
Learn more about Choghakate Kazarian: www.instagram.com/Choghakate_kazarian/?hl=fr
Christopher Atamian
Meri Karapetyan: Ready for Her Closeup at the Biennale de Lyon
An emerging artist raised in Yerevan, Meri Karapetyan challenges ideas of borders and conflict in her work, reimagining them as transitional spaces. Her large-scale barbed wire installation at the Biennale de Lyon transforms barriers into pathways, inviting new perspectives on division and identity.
Read more
