Monday, February 23, 1998
Armenians hope exhibit aims fulfilled
ART Association’s goal was to rouse empathy, teach culture’s
history
By Megan Dickerson
Daily Bruin Contributor
"Every Armenian has a genocide story to tell," says Ardashes
Kasskhian, a fourth-year history student and artist who spearheaded
"The Armenian Experience in Art," an exhibit of paintings which
closed Friday in Kerckhoff Art Gallery.
Using both subtle and not-so-subtle images of the 1915 Armenian
genocide, the two-week long exhibit attempted to create an
illustrative biography of Armenians in America.
The exhibit, which was sponsored by the UCLA Armenian Students
Association (ASA), featured five Armenian artists of varying ages
and styles. The paintings that lined the walls of the small gallery
next to Kerckhoff Coffeehouse ranged in genre from religious
iconography to Armenian landscapes.
Kassakhian, who in addition to his role as a featured artist is
president of the ASA, says that each painting symbolizes some
aspect of the Armenian experience in America. He says the genocide,
which was inflicted by the Turks during World War I, plays an
important role in Armenian-American art. Its importance stems in
part because many Armenians arrived in America due to the diaspora,
the global scattering of the Armenians after the genocide. It
follows in suit that this subject would hit close to home for many
of the 600 Armenian students on UCLA’s campus, Kasskhian says.
"Armenian art has been profoundly influenced by the genocide,"
Kassakhian affirms.
This is especially true for Eiffel Nazaryan, an up-and-coming
artist whose work highlights the show. A third-year potential
studio art student at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
Nazaryan came to the United States from Armenia in 1990 and still
keeps contacts overseas.
"Being apart from them makes me feel kind of alone," Nazaryan
says, his voice slightly accented. "I have to connect to them by
studying art and creating art that relates to (the conflict)."
Nazaryan’s latest works feature Armenian musicians and painters
whose lives were torn apart by the genocide.
By bringing to light such figures through his art, Nazaryan
seeks to educate and give the viewer a sense of history and
empathy.
"That’s one of the ways that I can talk to people in general and
tell them about the Armenian question, about the genocide and about
things that have happened to the Armenian in history," Nazaryan
says. "It’s like advertisement in the form of art."
Paintings by the other artists detailed Armenian flowers,
abandoned churches, and illuminated manuscripts and snowy Armenian
landscapes. One of the artists is Nazaryan’s uncle, while another
is a student still overseas.
Kassakhian says that showing a variety of styles by artists of
different ages was the best way to give the general public a
glimpse into Armenian culture.
"I hope people can see through the art … to the vibrant
culture," Kassakhian says. "The Armenian people, although small (in
number) to some, are a vibrant community and contribute to every
field, not only art. This (exhibit) is the easiest way we can show
that, physically."
The ASA is planning on presenting another exhibit, a visual
timeline of genocide in conjuntion with Jewish and Greek
organizations on campus. In the meantime, the group meets once a
month to network with Armenian professionals and other members of
the community.
As this particular exhibit closed, Kassakhian and Nazaryan hoped
that all visitors to the exhibit were able to connect with the
Armenian experience in America through the visual images
displayed.
"We had a reception and somebody asked me the question, ‘How do
you relate to genocide?,’" Nazaryan says. "’How do you create
something about genocide that you haven’t even experienced?’ And I
was like, okay, watch TV, sit there for like five minutes and see
what’s going on, the killing, the conflict in the world …
obviously, you can tell people are getting killed, getting hurt.
The genocide is not something that happened millions of years ago
… Just listen to the survivors, and you just can’t walk away and
say ‘No, that must have been a mistake.’"