University of Lisbon | November 28–30, 2024

This international conference brought together academics, curators, and art critics to explore the legacy of the Soviet period and its continuing impact on art and culture in Armenia and the wider Caucasus region.

Through a rich day of talks and discussion, participants examined key artistic figures such as Yervand Kochar and Arshile Gorky, reflected on the role of institutions like the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and explored questions of artistic freedom, post-socialist economies, and the emergence of art markets after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Notable speakers included Angela Harutyunyan (Berlin University of the Arts), Pedro Lapa (University of Lisbon), Nazareth Karoyan and Ruben Arevshatyan (ICA Yerevan), and Iain Robertson (Hongik University, Seoul).

The event concluded with a forward-looking session on the promotion of Armenian modern and contemporary art as a research and institutional project presented by Zara Ouzounian-Halpin and Stephen McCoubrey.

Institutional Partners:

• ARTIS – Art History Institute, University of Lisbon
• Erasmus Mundus Joint Master “Managing Art and Cultural Heritage in Global Markets”
• Institute for Contemporary Art, Yerevan
• Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
• Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia

This event is part of AMCA’s broader initiative aimed at promoting and reintegrating Armenian modern and contemporary art into the global art dialogue.

Once on the periphery of global art conversations, Armenia is now asserting itself as a dynamic cultural force in the Caucasus. Its capital, Yerevan, has become home to a growing number of contemporary artists, independent initiatives, and international partnerships, creating new momentum for the country’s visual arts scene.

As the Asia Times article “Armenia: The New Modern Art Hub of the Caucasus” highlights, this shift has been powered by a mix of grassroots energy and strategic programming. Institutions like the Cafesjian Center for the Arts and new platforms like the Armenia Art Fair are drawing global attention, while local artists are increasingly engaging with regional and international dialogues. The fusion of Soviet-era legacies with bold contemporary voices is shaping a distinctly Armenian modern art narrative.

This growing visibility is not only cultural—it’s strategic. Armenia’s art scene is now part of a broader conversation about identity, diplomacy, and regional positioning. Read the full article to learn more about how Armenia is carving out its space on the modern art map:

Armenia: The New Modern Art Hub of the Caucasus – Asia Times

Earlier this year, his much-anticipated monograph Paul Guiragossian: Displaced Modernity – edited by the curatorial duo Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, together with Paul Guiragossian’s daughter and president of the Paul Guiragossian Foundation, Manuella Guiragossian – was launched at Art Dubai. The book was recently transformed into an exhibition at Beirut Art Fair called Lebanon Modern! A Tribute to Paul Guiragossian, which consisted of a chronological display of the artist’s work that not only included paintings and drawings, but also family photographs, film clips and quotes. Armenia Art Fair spoke with Manuella Guiragossian about her father’s artwork and the exhibition in Beirut.

Armenia Art Fair: How did the exhibition at Beirut Art Fair come about?

Manuella Guiragossian: This year, and more specifically November 20, 1993, marks the 25^th anniversary of Paul Guiragossian’s passing so over a year ago the Paul Guiragossian Foundation planned for a few commemorative events surrounding this anniversary as well as the release of the much anticipated monograph, Paul Guiragossian: Displacing Modernity published by Silvana Editoriale and edited by Sam Bardaouil, Till Fellrath and myself.

The book was launched at Art Dubai in March 2018 in parallel with an exhibition at the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah with works coming from collections only in the UAE.

The Tribute exhibition at the Beirut Art Fair took place in September as the monograph was also released worldwide and was set to take the audience on a little walk through the 5 decades of Guiragossian’s career.

AAF: What was the reception like to the exhibition?

MA: Anything we do around Paul Guiragossian always gets great reception and fascination by all generations. We usually get major attendance and very often re-attendance by people who want to learn more and can’t get enough. I feel that people have a thirst to learn more about Guiragossian and working on this book for over 5 years gives me great satisfaction in sharing a lot about the artist’s life and work with the public.

We get art collectors, art enthusiasts, students and press as well as people who are newly discovering the artist. Audiences are always thankful and appreciative of the efforts we make as a foundation and that gives us the drive to continue.

AAF: How did you go about curating the exhibition, why did you select the images that you did, the film clips, the photographs?

MA: As I had worked on the archives for more than 10 years, I have a very particular understanding of my father’s path and artistic evolution, so I wanted to present that (as we did in the monograph) through the archival material as well as the original works. I wanted to create that path through the decades of his life and have the audience walk through the book and discover the different stages of Paul’s life.

AAF: What is your favourite work in the exhibition?  

MA: It’s very difficult to pick one work as my favourite because I have many. Every decade has masterpieces that are stunning and have such depth, especially since I know the stories behind them, it makes it hard to choose. Having said that, I have a special place in my heart for “Composition” (also titled “La Grande Charge”, 1990-91. Oil on canvas. 130 x 200 cm.) which is magnificent in my opinion because it encapsulates my father’s entire career. To reach that kind of virtuosity after about 50 years is just amazing. It’s also why I used a detail from it on the cover of the monograph.

AAF: The book that the Beirut Art Fair exhibition was based on (Paul Guiragossian: Displacing Modernity) launched at Art Dubai in March of this year, what did it mean to have this exhibition in Beirut?

MA: Beirut is the city that embraced my father, gave him a permanent home, a family and success. The Lebanese people adore Paul Guiragossian and are always very excited and proud to see his work, that’s why it’s very important for us to release this book in Beirut and to do exhibitions around Guiragossian as often as possible.

AAF: With the inclusion of quotes and film clips, it seemed like you tried to let people know about Paul Guiragossian’s personality, adding layers to Paul Guiragossian the painter, with the father, husband, teacher. What is it most important to you for people to know about him? 

MA: I think people need to know the combination of things Paul was in order to have a better understanding of his work and his philosophy. It’s through monographs such as the one just published with 400 pages, 600 artworks and archival documents and comprehensive anthology of primary documents that we can tap into the world of Guiragossian a little bit. People are usually familiar with one aspect of his work while there is a fascinating amount of ideas, history, conferences and a very unique look at life that they need to know as well. Only then will people be able to have a clear idea of who Paul was and then the artwork will mean so much more.

AAF: Will the exhibition tour? What do you hope people will take away from the exhibition?

MA: Paul Guiragossian represents multiple people not just Armenians, Palestinians, Lebanese but a vast region, which is mostly misunderstood, misrepresented or marginalized. A touring exhibition sheds light on all these things to a larger public and other cultures who never come to our region to be able to learn and experience our arts and artists. Our culture. A comprehensive monograph about Paul Guiragossian that is distributed worldwide for the first time, is a good start and we hope these exhibitions will get a chance to reach more countries and museums for us to be able to share all this with.

Berlin. The following research reveals basic art market data for the South Caucasus region. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are each represented by the career developments of three selected top artists. The analysis describes the dynamics of the artists’ ranking over the years. The ranking is calculated according to the number and quality of shows in relation to all other artists listed on Artfacts.Net. The highest-ranking position is one, and the lowest is 206256.

In the article Armenia! The New Modern Art Hub of the Caucasus?, published in Asia Times on February 3rd, 2019, the author Vigen Galstyan classifies Armenian post-Soviet artists such as: Karen Ohanyan, Grigor Khachatryan, and David Kochunts as ‘treasure troves for adventurous collectors’. None of those artists has a strong profile within the Artfacts.Net platform.

‘ There is a certain tension between public critics’ reviews on contemporary Caucasian art and facts as presented by quotas within the exhibitions’ history at Artfacts.Net. The conclusion drawn from these examples is that émigré Caucasian artists, whose work was displayed in Western institutions, managed to build more international profiles than those who remained at home. ‘

Results

Armenia

The first top Armenian artist, Armen Eloyan (b.1966, Yerevan), is placed at number 6260 in the global ranking. He works in the medium of painting. He is known for his large-scale, irreverent paintings of anthropomorphic animals and figures, in which the artist depicts absurd narratives in his darkly existential manner. He participated in 69 exhibitions, of which 18 were solo shows. He was mostly exhibited in Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany. Eloyan is represented by Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (no. 12 in the United Kingdom), Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam (no. 9 in the Netherlands) and Tim van Laere Gallery, Antwerp (no.16 in Belgium). Exhibition history indicates that Armen Eloyan’s career is almost entirely based in Western Europe, with the exception of a few shows in the United States.

The second top Armenian-Canadian artist Yousuf Karsh (b.1908, Mardin, Ottoman Empire -modern-day Turkey – d. 2002 in Boston) is placed at number 9073 in the global ranking. Karsh worked in photography, representing portraits of famous individuals. He was exhibited 102 times, almost half of them (48) in solo shows. He was mostly active in the United States and Canada but has also exhibited around the world: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. His works are included in notable museum collections, such as those of Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Canada, Toronto.

The third top place is represented by Vahram Aghasyan (b.1974, Yerevan) at no 10572 in the global ranking. In contrast to the previous two, Aghasyan lives and works in his native Yerevan and has much stronger ties to the local art scene in Armenia. He works with photography, time-based media, and installation (Museum of Revolution, Installation, 2014, fig.1). His work was presented at 52 exhibitions, of which four are solo shows and five are biennials. Aghasyan belongs to a younger generation of artists and has had many fewer solo shows than either Karsh or Eloyan. He has a more diverse exhibition history, however, having had mostly group shows across Europe and in Armenia. He has been mostly exhibited in Italy and frequently in Poland and the Balkans. He participated in the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005.

Fig 1

Azerbaijan

In addition to Azerbaijan’s established national art institutions (National Art Museum of Azerbaijan, Baku Museum of Modern Art, The Museum Center of the Ministry of Culture of the Azerbaijan Republic), investment in recent years in the capital city of Baku has led to a wave of gentrification, giving rise to a selection of dynamic contemporary art spaces that support the careers of many emergent Azeri practitioners.

ArtFacts’ top ranked Azeri artist is Babi Badalov (b.1959,Lerik) with a world artist ranking of 3,075. He currently lives and works in Paris. Working at the intersection of visual art and poetry, Badalov is known for creating installations rooted in the concept of assemblage that combine various objects and media and regularly incorporate text, employing a breadth of symbols and languages. Because their content is political and aimed at furthering international dialogues around identity and equality, the artist was forced to leave Azerbaijan, travelling first to Saint Petersburg before settling in Paris. On returning to mount an exhibition at YARAT (Baku’s #3 Art Institute according to Artfacts) in 2019 (fig.2), Badalov commented that ‘much of the work exhibited across Azerbaijan is conservative; there are no new topics, certainly no dialogue. My mission in this exhibition at YARAT is to bring exactly what I am doing in Paris to Baku. The painted fabrics suspended from the ceiling address topics of anti-capitalism, decolonization, language identity, spirituality, mysticism, Orientalism and poetics. There is also a mural on the back wall that I made for Azerbaijan that explores the country’s complex cultural identity.’ (Mousse 67 – moussemagazine.it/babi-badalov-alice-bucknell-2019/).

Badalov exhibits regularly at international museums and is represented by the Galérie Jérome Poggi, Paris, and The Gallery Apart, Rome.

Fig 2

Georgia

According to the Artfacts.Net database, Georgia has featured in 126 exhibitions, representing 146 artists, within 25 existing institutions, in five cities. A predecessor of the present-day museum, the National Art Gallery in Tbilisi, focusses on Georgian artists. It functions under joint administration with Tbilisi History Museum, forming the Museum of Georgia. The Museum of Modern Art Tbilisi (MOMA) constitutes the next relevant institution, followed by the Center of Contemporary Art Tbilisi (CCAT).

The top Georgian artist Thea Djordjadze (b.1971 in Tbilisi) is placed at no. 758 in the world artist ranking. Currently based in Berlin, Djordjadze is mainly known for creating sculptures and installation art (fig.4). She has taken part in 152 exhibitions, of which 29 were solo shows (the last one in 2019 in Tokyo) and, six were biennials (the most recent being the last one Biennale di Venezia – 56th International Art Exhibition). She has mostly exhibited in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Djordjadze’s peak year, 2012, was the year in which she participated in the most public group exhibitions.

The second top ranked Georgian artist, Andro Wekua (b.1977, Sochumi), originally from Soviet Georgia, is placed no. 1059 in the global ranking. He lives in Zurich and Berlin, where he works with the media painting, drawing, film, sculpture, and installation (fig.5). His work is mostly displayed in Switzerland, the United States and Germany, featuring in a total of 145 exhibitions, of which 29 were solo shows (the most recent in 2019 at Gladstone Gallery in New York), eight biennials (the most recent in 2013 in Osaka at the Dojima River Biennale), and eight art fairs (last one in 2018 at TEFAF, Maastricht). His works can be found mainly in American museum collections, such as those of the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

The third Georgian artist, Vajiko Chachkhiani (b.1985), ranks no. 2198 on the global artist ranking list. He lives and works in Berlin. He is an installation artist (fig.6). He has taken part in significantly fewer exhibitions than the above mentioned artists; 33 altogether eight of which were solo shows (the most recent at Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn). He also participated in two biennials (the most recent being the 15th Istanbul Biennial in 2017) and five art fairs (the most recent being Art Basel 2019). Chachkhiani is mainly represented in Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, and his works can be found in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Siegen, Germany.

The analysis shows a pattern common to all three Georgian artists; they are based and are creatively active in Western Europe, where they are officially represented.

Fig 3

Fig 4

Fig 5

The art industry in independent Armenia never developed sufficiently to materially change the way the art industry had functioned in Soviet Armenia. Art collectors had gone underground and they mostly remained underground. How has the art industry regenerated after decades of nationalisation of both art works and galleries; and how had it evolved in the Soviet Union and in Soviet Armenia? Armenia Art Fair met to discuss this with Nazareth Karoyan, art critic, curator and Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art of Armenia.

Since the 1980s, Karoyan has contributed enormously to the establishment of the contemporary art landscape in Armenia. He has set up several private art galleries, the first Armenian contemporary art periodical, and curated up to twenty exhibitions. “I don’t know many art collectors of the past. Until now, it has not even been defined who is an art collector – is it someone who has five works or one hundred?”

However, 40 years of engagement with art speaks for itself. “Art collection didn’t exist in the Soviet Union as such. Up until the 1960s there were periods of fundamental change in the socio political, societal and cultural lives of the people. Then citizens started to question both the system and themselves, through art. This led to the revival of art – out of antagonism towards Socialist Realism came new aesthetics in terms of art genres, and this increased the collection of art”.

However, it was still illegal which is why underground communities of art collectors formed in the
Soviet Union.

“Young artists opposed well-established painters, and those professional creators of colossal works of Socialist Realism featuring the Soviet citizen and the toil involved in building Socialism. Young artists started painting simple landscapes, human, emotional simple works. Due to the emotional and psychological issues originating from the complication of Soviet society, the Soviet citizen started questioning its future as a utopia”.

At the same time, underground and illegal entrepreneurial practices were establishing in the Soviet Union and the two realities coincided naturally. “Art and art collecting in itself became a tool of influence in certain circles. At that time, it involved the so-called underground businessmen and the Soviet ruling elite: to indicate a certain status, they would invest in art and they couldn’t hide the funds needed to do so. Art collectors also loved the works, they loved interactions with artists and creating links and friendships with painters. Understanding art comes later, first comes the love of art, and a professional understanding of art evolves through long-term involvement”.

The 70s and 80s provided enough time for art collectors to also develop and dictate taste in contemporary art, shaping the black market of art of the Soviet Union. “It became mutually complementary: new approaches brought interest in the paintings, the purchases and the tastes and requirements of the art collectors set a bar of quality and through the time the art market, the art industry evolved and developed”.

An interesting development of the 70s and 80s was the involvement of the art-representatives outside of the Soviet Union. They were interested not just in Soviet art but in art that was antagonistic to the Soviet Union and its ideology. “I know about cases, when well established, as well as unknown Armenian artists’ works, were purchased and transferred from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the collapse of the Soviet Union didn’t accumulate progress that would have brought Armenian art collectors out of the shadow. It wasn’t somehow imposed by the state regulations rather than the realities of wealth distribution. The contemporary art didn’t acquire the cultural, societal, economic importance to pave its path from the underground. Another circumstance was the fact that people who happened to own the money turned out to be oligarchs who were not interested in publicity at all”.  

The underground art collection was an obstacle for the progress and expansion of contemporary art and development of the dynamic art market and industry in Armenia. “It is a pity since the market and industry development only shapes art collections and brings new values to the societies. We lack mechanisms and good practice. While there is always a chance for private collections ending up as public wealth presented by the families, the absence of mechanisms never creates a chance for it.”
“These issues are discussed in narrow professional circles, but it does not become a subject for wide public discussion, it does not become a subject of academic research, which leads to the fact that on the one hand, the market, on the other hand, the preservation, dissemination and popularisation does not develop”.

Photo credit: Ed Tadevosyan