Summer is in full swing, and so is Yerevan’s sun. While city dwellers plan their escapes from the punishing heat, the capital’s social calendar is ramping up with a torrent of events that will immerse you in all sorts of art if you, well… let it.
To help you navigate the vibrant art scene, we’re putting together a short bi-weekly digest of the best that the capital has on offer for the art-going public and visitors.
EXHIBITIONS
The National Gallery of Armenia has been one of the more active cultural platforms in Yerevan in the past few years, and it has remained consistent in that regard with a surge of new and diverse exhibitions for the holiday season. Last week it launched its summer program with a large retrospective exhibition of Robert Elibekyan, a key representative of post-war Armenian “national modernism”. The 84 year old master is truly one of the last Mohicans – a generation that completely revolutionized Armenian art in the 1960s with their fanciful, extravagant and very “Armenian” remixes of early 20th century European modernist art. Elibekyan is something of a genius when it comes to color and this show is a real feast for the eyes.
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Exhibition: “Mysteries” Robert Elibekyan
Where: National Gallery of Armenia
1 Aram Street, Yerevan, Armenia
Dates: Open since June 14
While there, you could also pop-in to see a curious ensemble of around 60 works by a motley group of modern Armenian artists collected by the painter Valmar. As far as collection exhibitions go, it’s a wildly uneven, yet fascinating cross-section of a particular view of, or rather taste in Armenian art, as embodied by one of the most commercial local artists working today.
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Exhibition: “Donators and Donations” from Valmar’s peculiar collection
Where: National Gallery of Armenia
Entrance from Republic Square
Dates: Open since June 7
And if you’re still hunkering for more painterly experiments, The Cafesjian Centre for the Arts has a parallel show to give you a real overdose. The solo exhibition of London-based artist Georgii Uvs presents a cacophony of saturated and flowing abstract paintings made in florescent paints that approach color as a cosmic realm of light, movement and intuitive impulses frozen in paint. It’s basically like Mark Rothko on acid, so make sure you go with some Pink Floyd on your playlist.
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Exhibition: “The Gate”, Georgii Uvs
Where: Cafesjian Center for the Arts (Cascade complex)
Eagle gallery
Dates: June 14-October 6
Working in the more traditional spectrum, the painter Ara Haytayan has continued to explore the seemingly endless variations of aesthetic systems in painting over the past three decades. Always elegantly executed, albeit sometimes too bound to past idioms, the results of his latest investigations will be shown in Haytayan’s solo exhibition Spatial Hypotheses, held at the Igityan Centre for Aesthetics from June 15-30.
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Exhibition: “Spatial Hypothesis”, Ara Haytayan
Where: Henrik Igityan National Centre for Aesthetics
13 Abovyan st., Yerevan
Dates: June 15- June 30
There is also an opportunity to encounter other interesting international artists at HayArt Cultural Centre, which is holding an exhibition of recent lithographs and etching by the Polish and Chinese printmakers Tomasz Winiarski and Minjie Zhang, both of whom were featured at the Yerevan International Print Biennale in the past. Highly complex and monumental in their technique and scale, the spectacular work of these artists is both familiar and surprising in different ways, defying conventional perceptions of what “works on paper” should look like.
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Exhibition: “Perpetuum mobile” & “Solo on the stage”
Where: HayArt Cultural Centre
7a; Mashtots Ave., Yerevan
Dates: June 22-August 22
Opened over a month ago, one of the best exhibitions in town has passed largely under the radar. But Karen Mirzoyan’s poignant and quietly chilling series of polaroids showing the refugee cars making their last trip out of Artsakh in November 2023 is both a conceptually rigorous and emotionally harrowing artistic response to this tragedy that is also a remarkable new work of contemporary Armenian photography. So make sure to catch it before it closes in July.
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Exhibition: “Left”, Karen Mirzoyan
Where: Mirzoyan Library
10 Mher Mkrtchyan St., Yerevan
Dates: Open until end of July
The Artists’ Union has a very different kind of photography exhibition, which should tag at plenty of nostalgic strings. Opening on the 27th of June, this large showcase of historic photographs from the archives of Armenpress New Agency will present numerous iconic images of Armenian history from the 1960s to our days. Well worth a visit, if only to learn the names of the photographers behind many of these famous documentary photographs.
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Exhibition: “Documentary of the Century”
Where: Artists’ Union of Armenia
16 Abovyan St., Yerevan
Dates: June 27-July 4
If you haven’t heard about AHA Collective and the diverse projects this small, but hyper-active outfit manages to organize every year, then you’ve been missing out on some of the more interesting events on the local art scene. Last year, curator Nairi Khatchadourian put together a fascinating group show called Living Threads in the culture house of Vernishen village in Syunik, which featured a series of modern carpets designed by artist Davit Kochunts. Original and painterly in their forms, these carpets are an overdue contemporary response to the Armenian carpet-weaving tradition and Yerevan residents have an opportunity to see them at the Ararat Brandy Factory Museum in a re-edited version of the 2023 exhibition, together with the superb photographs made by Piruza Khalapyan.
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Exhibition: “Bold Khndzoresk”, Nairi Khatchadourian
Where: Ararat Brandy Factory
2 Admiral Isakov Ave, Yerevan
Dates: Open until August 1
AHA also opened its own “home” last month with a small exhibition and co-working space on Moskovyan Street, which promises to be a really exciting location for discovering new works by emerging artists and also some by past masters. For its inaugural exhibition AHA has presented a never-before-seen series of semi-abstract miniature watercolors by the noted architect Artsvin Grigoryan. Created in the 1980s-1990s, these delicate pieces work like a musical symphony when seen together and it’s a unique opportunity to experience them before they go back to the architect’s family.
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Exhibition: AHA and Artsvin Grigoryan
Where: AHA Collective
Moskovyan 31, Yerevan
Dates: Open until July 25
LECTURES
Art exhibitions aside, Yerevan always has a busy schedule of really fantastic lectures and seminars that largely go unnoticed by the wider public.
This coming Thursday the 27th, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Yerevan will host a hands-on workshop by Amsterdam-based curator Roos Wijnen on the significance of archives in the context of artistic and curatorial practices. Archives are a hot topic and material in the contemporary art world and this is an exciting opportunity to learn about the subject from a highly-respected international expert.
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Workshop & discussion: “Show me your archive and I can tell you who you are… Can I?”
Where: The Institute for Contemporary Art, ICA
47 Avet Avetisyan St., Yerevan
Dates: Workshop-June 27, 7p.m./ Discussion-June 29, 7p.m.
* In English
History and ethnography aficionados will have plenty to mull over on the 29th of June, during a discussion seminar at the History Museum of Armenian dedicated to one of the most important, yet overlooked Armenian female ethnographers – the fascinating Srbuhi Lisitsyan. An amazingly multi-faceted figure, Lisitsyan had a life worthy of a Hollywood biopic and this is a much overdue focus on her legacy.
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Seminar: “Show me your archive and I can tell you who you are… Can I?”
Where: History Museum of Armenia
Republic Square, Yerevan
Dates: June 29, 4 p.m.
* In Armenian
Founded by expatriate architect Maria Kremer and anthropologist Maria Gunko, Homeing is a much-needed research project that focuses on issues of displacement, migration and decoloniality in the context of Armenia and the wider region. The platform regularly organizes lectures and seminars on these very urgent issues and their latest talk will focus on the subject of Home in Transition – a particularly burning topic in light of the recent waves of displacements in Artsakh, Ukraine and Russia.
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Lecture & Discussion: “Home in Transition”, Maria Kremer & Maria Gunko
Where: Rage Garage
Rafael Lemkin 14, Yerevan
Dates: June 29, 8 p.m.
* Bilingual (Russian & English)
MOVIES
If the exalted world of painting and academic lectures aren’t your cup of tea on a sweltering June weekend, then the Yerevan cinemas and film clubs have some worthy alternatives.
There’s a screening of Alain Resnais’ sublime 1959 masterpiece Hiroshima, Mon Amour on the 2nd of July at the National Library of Armenia. Completely non-linear and poetic, this stunning meditation on love and memory is the epitome of the French Nouvelle Vague style and must be seen on the big screen to be properly experienced.
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Screening: “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”
Where: National Library of Armenia
72 Teryan St., Yerevan
Dates: July 2, 7 p.m.
*In French with Armenian & English subtitles
Of the latest film releases one can look forward to Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders starring Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler. A thoughtful and sexy meditation on youthful angst and sexy bikes, this has already been lauded as one of the best of the year and judging from the director’s consistently inventive output, we can safely anticipate a classy and original take on an old genre.
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Screening: “The Bikeriders”
Where: Kinopark
Yerevan Mall, 34/3 Arshakunyants Ave., Yerevan
Dates: June 25, 26, 11 p.m.
*The above dates are for English language screenings only
And just to make an important point here… the current screening schedule of Moscow Cinema includes five (!) Armenian feature-length comedies which are about an obese guy who falls in love with a robot, a bunch of oversexed women who may or may not have killed an oligarch, a Total Idiot who tries to save the world through kindness, a Yerevan taxi driver who takes on Bill Murrey’s role in Groundhog Day and an ethnographer who’s attempting to register the traditional Armenian wedding ritual into the Unesco list of intangible heritage. It’s great to see so many local films competing with international blockbusters but, as they say, enter at your own risk.
