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100

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100

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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:

Paravon Mirzoyan

Title:

1915 Armenian Landscape, 2011

Location:

Artist's Collection

Artist: Paravon Mirzoyan
Title: 1915 Armenian Landscape, 2011
Location: Artist's Collection

Decorative wholeness and the rhythmic balance of the painting “work” for the length of contemplation. The width of panorama, dynamism of the painting’s platitude helps raise above yourself and the reality. There is a sense of length of the space in depth through the contrast of the multi-scaled color platitudes. The mountain, as a penetrating symbol - is a witness of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 - very similar to the motive of flood: it reaches to the almost universal scale. And this is the aesthetic viewpoint of the artist.

Artist:

Simon Galstyan

Title:

The Nation Will Sign, 1960

Location:

National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Artist: Simon Galstyan
Title: The Nation Will Sign, 1960
Location: National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

As many Armenian artist, Simon Galstyan depicted Komitas Archimandrite as a symbol of perpetuation of the nation, who had experienced the Genocide. The barbarically demolished room and the atrocities still carried out by the Turkish officers go to the background. Seeing the suffered glance of Komitas dressed all in white and at the same time the unsurrendered posture…

And the nation never stopped singing.

Artist:

Edward Arzrunian

Title:

The Refugees in Etjmiatsin, 1968

Location:

National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Artist: Edward Arzrunian
Title: The Refugees in Etjmiatsin, 1968
Location: National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

In Soviet Armenia there was a silence about the Armenian Genocide. The authorities of USSR had an agreement with Turkey of not mentioning the Armenian Genocide in Armenia. It was prohibited for the Armenian artists to cover the theme of Genocide in their canvases till the 60-ies. And only in 1965 when the Genocide Memorial monument was built in the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, the ban wall seemed to have vanished. Armenian artists started to create works depicting the historic truth.

This work of Eduard Arzunian is one of those historic facts showing how the Armenian mother, who has escaped from exile, starvation, calamity of death, together with her children and other orphaned children would gather at the church begging for God’s shelter.

Artist:

Karen Aghamyan

Title:

Exile, 2010

Location:

State Gallery of Karabakh, Shushi

Artist: Karen Aghamyan
Title: Exile, 2010
Location: State Gallery of Karabakh, Shushi

Karen Aghamyan: "The sons of the nation carry the Armenian culture, history and identity of thousand years wherever they go. The survivors of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 were displaced carrying their faith, hope and culture of the past."

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shared arts

Artist:

Adriana Angolian