German Avagyan about his “The City of familiar faces” photo exhibition and the “fears”
“Jean-Paul Existential” cafe hosted renowned photographer German Avagyan’s exhibition of rare photographs entitled “The City of familiar faces”. The exhibition will run until 2015, the end of January. In the conversation with “Aravot”, the photographer said that the exhibition was born twenty years ago and has made the first photo two decades ago, in June of 2004 at the Writers’ Union. Saying “The City of familiar faces”, he does not mean only Yerevan. “Though I was thinking of Yerevan just twenty years ago, now, I understood that the city is not the buildings and constructions. It is a virtual city inside you, where you gather the people you want to see,” comments German Avagyan. He regrets of what existed twenty years ago does not exist now in Yerevan. “We lost a lot, beginning with the Youth House. It’s good that at least we saved “Zvartnots” airport… The city is changing, the buildings are destroyed, but the people, their faces will remain in our memory.” He painted Ohan Durian, Kapr Khachvankyan, Artashes Hovsepyan, Hrant Matevosyan, Aram Gharabekyan, Samvel Mkrtchyan and many-many others…
To our question of whether his exhibition is a special message to the new generation that does not recognize many of famous people in his photos, our interlocutor replied, “This subject was recently spoken by Nazaret Karoyan, and I also told him about my fears, I said that it seems to me that we will be gone with our time… In other words, these photos are necessary to us, perhaps, some 50 or 20 years later, this-or-that photo may be used or not. What I’m saying is that actually the modern art is for our time, for us, and if young people do not know, let’s say, who Edmon Avetyan is, so what I can do, let them at least read Mark Grigoryan’s posts in his blog. On the other hand, when we are young, we did know much, later we learned and understood.”
The photographer says that each one receiving a camera as a gift considered himself a serious photographer and post an announcement on Facebook page saying that he accepts orders for the wedding. Today, everyone takes mono-style and uniform photos, because their cameras think instead of them, while in the past, the picture was different. You could recognize Vahan Kochar’s, Zaven Khachikyan’s or Gagik Harutyunyan’s photos from among 200 photos. German Avagyan has never photographed the person in secret, he says that he does so that the person himself wants to be photographed. One story, however, is very impressive. He recalls Merujan Ter-Gulanyan saying, you will enter this room and photograph the writer. “I did not know that this person was Hrant Matevosyan, I had a Soviet camera, which was taking only 12 shots. I took 11 of them when I was sitting and working, all of a sudden he raised his head and said, hey, boy, what are you doing? At that point, even the focus of the camera changed, but it’s an important photo for me. So, we met and got to know each other.”
German Avagyan has one wish: to have a lot of money and travel throughout Armenia, and publish a book. There is one more thing; he wants to open a school of documentary photography, so far, he has not received any bid. The cause is known, he says, “People know that it will not bring them money, and I will not teach them how to draw a beautiful girl in the studio. But even if some five people are gathered, I will kindly work with them.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
Photos by Herman Avagyan
German Avagyan’s photo of Anna Grigoryan
