Unpleasant stories about the statues of famous Armenians that have appeared in the capital recently continue. As we have already informed, yesterday the leg of Hrant Matevosyan Statue was broken off. They wanted to take a photo with the statue, sat on it and broke it off.
At the end of the day, can we call what has happened to the statues cultural vandalism or the reason for problems was the fact that statues were made of a material that is easily broken? www.aravot.am discussed this issue with a set of sculptors.
Sculptor Davit Minasyan advised not to blame persons, unless there was evidence, and went into detail, “The reason for these problems is that the idea is very good, but the implementation is very bad.”
Read also
In response to a question whether we could consider the incident cultural vandalism or not, Mr. Minasyan said the following, “Dear folks, vandalism is a more important historic phenomenon. So wicked things happen around us, and we focus on statues… this is a technical problem, this is not cultural vandalism.”
Sculptor Levon Tokmajyan, nonetheless, considers the incident cultural vandalism. At the same time, he says, “Certainly, the material of statues is also a cause of breaking. However, I condemn that phenomenon in any case. We should implant in ourselves that in any case, a man worked on it and did as much as he could. It is a positive thing, the city authorities want the statues to be among people, enter their everyday life, they see, love and respect them. However, we suddenly see that they break off a finger, a leg. This is unacceptable. You can assess it, as you want, but it is a crime, anyway. It is a different matter whether the work of art is good or not. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it, don’t touch it, at the end of the day, art is subjective. It is not like everyone will start to applaud at once, they look at it for the second time, discover new things etc. If the city authorities see that it is not good, it is not liked, they will replace it with something else. However, one mustn’t smash them.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
