Epress.am News from Armenia
Armenia’s Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia (the Venice Biennial) officially opened for a second time this year.
As previously reported, the first opening, on Jun. 4, was incomplete. According to one of the curators of Armenia’s Pavilion, Ruben Arevshatyan, an essential construction piece needed to display the work of one of the works — that belonging to artist Astghik Melkonyan — was lost during shipping.
Fortunately, the missing piece arrived early this week and the artist, along with Arevshatyan and other assistants, set to work putting the work together. The commissioner and the curators of the Armenian National Pavilion apologized for the work not being ready on time and invited the public to the second opening today.
Astghik Melkonyan’s work elaborates specific formats, manuals, which address the economic dynamics of artistic work intertwined with larger techniques of social survival. The installation featured at the biennial, titled “How-to Manual: A Monthly Salary,” features 35 transparent panels that span 31 days in a month, depicting techniques one might use to survive on an average monthly salary in Armenia.
The title of this year’s Armenian National Pavilion was “MANUALS: Subjects of New Universality.” The concept, as described on the website of Armenia’s representation in this year’s Venice Biennial, can be summed up as follows:
“Any Manual is a result of a singular effort to overcome a deadlock that implicitly suggests the way of achieving its goal as a general model. Thus, a singular effort motivated by an urgent need proposes itself as a subject of new universality. The specificity of this subject is that it includes in itself its own lack, i.e. the need that brought it into existence.
“The artists involved in this project take the social, economic, and political turmoil of the post-Soviet Armenia as the platform for their artistic work. But by virtue of their belief in universality they model the singular efforts of dealing with these specific issues in a way that turns them into the possibility of universal emancipation.”
The 54th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia runs through till Nov. 27. The awards ceremony, which took place at the opening of the BIennale on Jun. 4, saw the German Pavilion win the Golden Lion for best National Participation, while the Golden Lion for the best artist at the ILLUMInations Exhibition went to Christian Marclay, Silver Lion for a promising young artist at the ILLUMInations Exhibition went to Haroon Mirza and Special Mentions went to the Lithuanian Pavilion and Klara Lidén, reports Cafa Art Info.
Photos (of a segment of “How-to Manual: A Monthly Salary”) courtesy of the artist.