Eds. Angela Harutyunyan, Nare Sahakyan Irina Shakhnazaryan
Forthcoming in 2025
The Anthology of 20th Century Art Criticism in Armenia is a collection of articles and essays that provide a comprehensive overview of the complex and dynamic development of modern and contemporary art criticism in Armenia throughout the previous century. The development and evolution of the language and discourses of art criticism appear in the volume against the backdrop of complex and everchanging contradictions between art and politics. Being entangled with the tempestuous history of twentieth-century Armenia, art criticism has been shaped by and have in turn shaped turbulent political processes, beginning from the foundation of the first republic to the postrevolutionary socialist construction, Stalinism, the politics of the Thaw, perestroika and the foundation of the independent state. The critical debates provide a fascinating insight into the discussions regarding the formation and characteristics of the national style, the boundaries of realism, and within that, the criticism of formalism, the complex and dynamic relationship between innovation and tradition as well as the problems of defining and challenging national identity. The institution of art criticism has been constructed, and the language of art criticism has been rehearsed by art critics who have engaged with the works of living artists, who were their contemporaries, from Martiros Saryan and Hakob Kojoyan to Yervand Kotchar, Minas Avetisyan, all the way to the 3rd Floor movement and the artists of the 1990s’ generation.
The volume has been compiled from publications in the periodical press. These are accompanied by research articles by the editors providing a critical and historical overview of the presented chapters, as well as editorial annotations and a bibliography of art criticism. The publication is a rich resource for research and education, unprecedented in its kind in Armenia.