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CHICAGO ARTIST MARKS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE WITH GUERNICA-SIZE WORK
09:45, 24 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
One hundred years after the mass killing of Armenians, a Chicago
artist has created a monumental painting to honor the victims and
celebrate a culture that nearly vanished, Reuters reports.
The 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman troops left up to an
estimated 1.5 million people dead and forced the exile of millions
more, threatening a 3,000-year-old culture rich in architecture,
literature, music and dance. It is widely seen as the 20th century's
first genocide.
Seeking to promote awareness of the culture and the tragedy,
Chicago-based artist Jackie Kazarian embarked on a painting of
enormous scale, called Project 1915, to be displayed for the first
time in Chicago's Mana Contemporary from April 17 to May 29.
Project 1915 is a semi-abstract landscape splashed with bold images
and text from ancient Armenian maps and church architecture, united
by a pattern of needle lace by Kazarian's Armenian-born grandmother
and with colors and symbols from illuminated manuscripts.
Kazarian, who has Armenian roots, drew on Pablo Picasso's epic painting
Guernica, which depicts the horror of a northern Spanish village's
bombing during Spain's civil war, for her painting.
It is the exact same size as Guernica at 11.5 feet by 26 feet.
"No one would have known what happened in Guernica if it wasn't for
that painting," Kazarian said.
The nature and scale of the killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces
during World War One remain highly contentious.
While a number of countries define the massacres as genocide and
while Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting,
the Turkish government denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and
that this was an act of genocide.
Last year Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan made unprecedented
condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians killed at the time, but
the legacy remains an obstacle to reviving frozen relations between
Turkey and neighboring Armenia, a small former Soviet territory.
In Kazarian's paintings, two open hands span the bottom corners,
as if holding up the work and an entire culture. It is a gesture
Kazarian said she remembers her grandmother often using.
"This is a very visceral, emotional project. But like any art that
references a painful past, it is about remembering, healing and
educating ourselves to make a better world," Kazarian said.
After its Chicago exhibition the non-profit painting will travel to
universities and galleries across the United States and the world
before it is donated to a cultural institution for a permanent home.
http://www.armradio.am/en/2015/03/24/chicago-artist-marks-armenian-genocide-with-guernica-size-work/
09:45, 24 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
One hundred years after the mass killing of Armenians, a Chicago
artist has created a monumental painting to honor the victims and
celebrate a culture that nearly vanished, Reuters reports.
The 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman troops left up to an
estimated 1.5 million people dead and forced the exile of millions
more, threatening a 3,000-year-old culture rich in architecture,
literature, music and dance. It is widely seen as the 20th century's
first genocide.
Seeking to promote awareness of the culture and the tragedy,
Chicago-based artist Jackie Kazarian embarked on a painting of
enormous scale, called Project 1915, to be displayed for the first
time in Chicago's Mana Contemporary from April 17 to May 29.
Project 1915 is a semi-abstract landscape splashed with bold images
and text from ancient Armenian maps and church architecture, united
by a pattern of needle lace by Kazarian's Armenian-born grandmother
and with colors and symbols from illuminated manuscripts.
Kazarian, who has Armenian roots, drew on Pablo Picasso's epic painting
Guernica, which depicts the horror of a northern Spanish village's
bombing during Spain's civil war, for her painting.
It is the exact same size as Guernica at 11.5 feet by 26 feet.
"No one would have known what happened in Guernica if it wasn't for
that painting," Kazarian said.
The nature and scale of the killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces
during World War One remain highly contentious.
While a number of countries define the massacres as genocide and
while Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting,
the Turkish government denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and
that this was an act of genocide.
Last year Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan made unprecedented
condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians killed at the time, but
the legacy remains an obstacle to reviving frozen relations between
Turkey and neighboring Armenia, a small former Soviet territory.
In Kazarian's paintings, two open hands span the bottom corners,
as if holding up the work and an entire culture. It is a gesture
Kazarian said she remembers her grandmother often using.
"This is a very visceral, emotional project. But like any art that
references a painful past, it is about remembering, healing and
educating ourselves to make a better world," Kazarian said.
After its Chicago exhibition the non-profit painting will travel to
universities and galleries across the United States and the world
before it is donated to a cultural institution for a permanent home.
http://www.armradio.am/en/2015/03/24/chicago-artist-marks-armenian-genocide-with-guernica-size-work/