Andranik Avetisyan, an artist from Gyumri, who sent his works to France, participated in the international contemporary art exhibition in Cannes on September 23-26, in absentia, won the “New Talent and Creative Idea” prize. There were 100 participants from all over the world.
In an interview with Aravot.am, the artist told that sometimes he posts his works on different Facebook pages, and one of the organizers of the Cannes exhibition, noticing those, had sent an invitation letter to him for participation. “The letter was in French, so I asked my son to translate, then the organizer phoned me and told that she was amazed by my works and asked to participate in their exhibition. In the beginning, she thought that I had drawn all those fine lines by hand, but when she talked to my son, he told that I work with cobwebs. The organizer was shocked on that idea. She told that they had never seen or heard of such a thing. At first, I agreed to go and then refused, I have difficulty to move from place to place. They even suggested me to send a work in case of not going there and said that they would take the rest of the works from the Internet, and exhibit in form of photos. I thought it was an unacceptable option to create photos and hang on the wall: an artist should not spoil his works like that.
When I refused, the organizer said that his foreign guests were waiting for me, they were interested in my work, they wanted to know, after all, whether my works are made of glass, or iron, she said they wanted to touch those, so they could understand.
I decided to send my works, mainly old ones, 15 in number, and one of those was broken on the way. My son is studying in France and we decided that he would take my works to the exhibition. My son is far from art, but when the President of the Jury approached him and made admiring statements, my son called me from France and told me those very enthusiastically. I did not expect such a reaction. My hall was crowded most of all, the visitors asked many questions, inquired about my working methods, and my son answered as much as he could. I felt inspired by a story: a French-Armenian woman entered my hall and, when she read my last name, Avetisyan, she proudly told one of the visitors, that the author is an Armenian, and her interlocutor answered: I know the talent of Armenians, look at Charles Aznavour, and you can picture: Armenians do things and the whole world gets shocked. Each of the visitors visited several times, bringing new people with them. Of course, I am very proud to be honored such an exciting prize at the international exhibition”, said Andranik Avetisyan.
Nevertheless, our interlocutor sincerely confesses that even after winning the international prize, he cannot believe that all this has happened to him, and the reason is, perhaps, according to him, that he was not personally present in Cannes, personally did not hear the admirable words addressed to him, people did not talk directly to him.
Andranik Avetisyan now has different invitations from different corners of the world, both from French galleries and various participant artists.
By the way, our interlocutor modestly states that he has not participated in exhibitions in Armenia, the cobweb works were presented only in Cannes and won a prize at once.
Let us remind that Andranik Avetisyan competed with Samvel Balasanyan for the post of mayor of Gyumri in 2012.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
