Artist Sahak Poghosyan expressed his concern on his Facebook page about Armenia;s participation in the Venice Biennale. For more details, we contacted the newly appointed Deputy Head of Contemporary Art Department at the Ministry of Culture Armine Ghazaryan. The Contemporary Art Department is not headed by anybody, and on the New Year eve, the former chief and the deputy were dismissed. Instead, the number of Minister Hasmik Poghosyan’s advisors is growing. Composer Arzas Voskanyan’s son, Grigor Voskanyan is among the newly appointed advisors.
Among other question concerning Biennale, we asked the Deputy Head of Contemporary Art Department at the Ministry of Culture Armine Ghazaryan how the Biennale curator was selected, what is the connection of the selected artists with the Republic of Armenia, what is meant by the concept of Biennale Armenity, how much state funds are provided, why the exhibition hall of San Lazzaro island is chosen, whether it is not a violation of the Charter that Sargis Zubanyan may represent both Turkey and Armenia. “Which Biennale do you mean, the one in 2014?” asked Deputy Head of the Department of Contemporary Art in surprise. The Venice Biennale in 2015, we stressed, feeling uncomfortable to add that the Biennale takes place every two years, and the word is just a hint. Armine Ghazaryan mentioned that according to her information, it is still not clear how much money is allocated for this purpose, she also said that all the questions are in the phase of discussion by the Ministry. She once again was surprised why we have telephoned the Department of Contemporary Art. We said that the Venice Biennale is a Biennale of Contemporary Art too.
In any case, our questions were left unanswered. Today, in the evening, the Deputy Head of the Department did not answer the calls so that we could get additional comments, although she had promised to make some clarification. Note that the 56th Venice Biennale will be held within the period of May 9 to November 22.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
