Breath Exhibition Opens at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts

October 09, 2015 On October 8, 2015 the exhibition Breath opened at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts. It presents a major group project by American-Armenian artist, architect and designer Vasken Brudian and his forty students from TUMO Center for Creative Technologies. The project features a site-specific installation of 125 hand-painted photo collages, which offer a new visual presentation of Armenian culture. 

The exhibition is focused on four major themes, The Tangible and the Ethereal, Soul Invigorating Breath, Under a New Light and Inspiration, which address the relationship between heritage and contemporaneity, exploring the pictorial capabilities of different forms and disciplines of ancient Armenian art as new expressive substances.  

“The work is the culmination of our long investigative deliberation on presenting our culture in a modern, distinctive language. The title Breath was extracted from St. Grigor Narekatsi’s Book of Lamentations, from which passages became the conceptual elements in our paintings. We thought it appropriately depicts the motivating force of this exhibition, namely to showcase the potential and flight of today’s young generation.

Extensively examining and photographing artifacts from all aspects of our present and historic culture - architecture, carvings, khachkars (cross-stones) and manuscripts, we created digital compositions, which then have been manually reworked. 

The resulting works developed into elaborate semi-abstractions that engage in the concerns of collective identity, history, memory and attempt to introduce a distinct national visual narra-tive. With their multiple viewpoints and multiple visual languages, the paintings represent complexity as well as a historic trace from our past to the present. 

It is worth mentioning that this idea is at the core of yet another conviction - to develop a vibrant design industry in Armenia.” - said the project’s author, Vasken Brudian. 

“This year the Cafesjian Center for the Arts has exclusively presented Armenian art and artists as part of its special programming in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Breath, an exciting project by artist, architect and designer Vasken Brudian and his forty young students, is the last exhibition at the Center for 2015. The project on view explores new forms of visually expressing our rich cultural heritage with a challenging vision presenting Armenia as a center for arts and design of international importance” - said the Acting Executive Director of CCA Vahagn Marabyan. 

The exhibition will be on view from October 8 through December 27, 2015. Admission will be free on October 9-11.

Vasken Brudian is an architect, designer, artist from Los Angeles, California. Having studied both art and architecture, Brudian employs the knowledge of both disciplines in his work. His artistic work has been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries across the United States. After working at some of the best architectural firms, he formed Archi Design Group in Los Angeles. In 2009, he established the Center for Experimental Art and Architecture and acted as its director and gallery curator. The gallery exhibited the work of emerging and established artists, architects, filmmakers and photographers, who had demonstrated innovation and contributed to the advancement of their respective disciplines. Since 2013 Vasken resides in Yerevan, Armenia. He currently teaches design at TUMO Center for Creative Technologies and is the initiator and the principal of Ardēan Design at Tumo, dedicated to transformative advancement of art, architecture and design in Armenia.