R
E
V N
E
X
T
Behind a nondescript wooden door, the sprawling grounds of Palazzo Zenobio overlook the anabranch of Venice’s Canale Grande. Originally constructed in a baroque style by the Zenobio family in 1690, the Palazzo later became the home of the College of the Mekhitarist Armenian monks of St. Lazzaro in 1850, and has since been a bastion of education for Armenians residing in Italy. This storied institution, with its grand ballroom known as the Hall of Mirrors, and painted scenes depicting the mythological life of Queen Zenobia from the 3rd century, couldn’t have offered a better setting for the Armenian Pavilion in the 57th Venice Biennale. 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide, and was also the year when Armenia won the Golden Lion Award for the best national pavilion in Venice. On the heels of such acclaim, Jean Boghossian, whose 15-room exhibition curated by Bruno Cora in the Palazzo showed works made mostly with a blowtorch, as well as a few paintings displayed at the Armenian church of Santa Croce degli Armeni in Venice, is the most significant of the three artists chosen to represent Armenia this year. Boghossian’s work continues a dialogue on what is referred to as “collective identity” in the catalog for the 2015 Armenian Pavilion.
Like many diasporic artists of Armenian descent, Boghossian’s itinerant upbringing holds significant impact on his practice. The artist’s childhood in Syria and then Lebanon, where he witnessed wars firsthand, followed by a migration to Brussels, have shaped a visual language in which fire became his tool to keep the culture of the Armenian diaspora alive. Boghossian’s scorched canvases, iconic large charred books and singed polystyrene panels inscribed with letters taken from a slew of languages—including Persian, Arabic and Armenian—do not simply represent the Armenian genocide as much as they fracture and refresh discourses on Armenian identity that have long been denied and suppressed. Beginning with the ornately decorated baroque ballroom where his installation of books and panels were reflected in large antique mirrors that surround the art, Boghossian’s exhibition “Indistinguishable Flame” created a marvelous dialogue between the 17th-century room and his art, reinvigorating contemporary representations of Armenian history.
In an interview with ArtAsiaPacific, the artist discusses his work, philosophy and art-making practice.
You refer to the ballroom known as Hall of Mirrors as “sorgente.” Can you tell me more about what this word means?
Sorgente is [Italian for] the “source.” This has to do with history, language and scripts preserved throughout the years. Here we have the image of the source where all of this started. It’s the source of knowledge and the source of tradition, and this is the transmission. What you see here are the books that have been burned due to wars. They form an illustration of how Armenians have suffered, and the culture has suffered but resisted. Armenians are resistant and resilient people, and they have survived invasions and devastations from empires, from Persians to Greeks to Turks to Mongols, but they still kept their language, identity, history and spirituality.
I chose to begin in this room because of the majesty of the space, and the dialog that my work creates with the baroque room. The magic of the space is in the way its mirrors make double the effect.
I see Armenian, Persian and Arabic inscribed on your polystyrene panels—what else is there?
On these panels, there is little bit of everything without anything being precise. I have included a little bit of Indian, a bit of Kufic and even Chinese. But fire makes calligraphy abstract. Artists who use calligraphy are stuck with the figures of calligraphy. I’m happy to go beyond the real scripts to show an abstract calligraphy where you may recognize Hebrew or Arabic or Indian. Whether you may or may not recognize anything is not important. The idea is to reunite not only Armenian culture, but also all cultures in the world. For those of us who are not only Armenian but also Syrian and Lebanese, it’s the birth of civilizations. Coming to Belgium, we know that beyond war there is life. War has never ended life throughout the history of mankind. This is why this [installation] is an illustration of survival and transmission of knowledge. The panels are an illustration of how the Egyptians and Mesopotamians wrote on stones. At the same time, it is burned—it shows the link between the past and the present. The burned books and panels become like a temple of knowledge.
Interior view of Palazzo Zenobia during the 57th Venice Biennale, featuring artwork by JEAN BOGHOSSIAN. Photo by Maxime Le Grande. Courtesy the artist.
What kinds of books are in this installation, and how do you create a sculptural effect?
I buy these large books in flea markets. I look at the quality of the paper. These books with old paper burn in such a way that they create texture, unlike modern books that disintegrate quickly into ashes. I burn, I cool, I re-burn, I re-cool, I wet, I varnish, and I re-burn the varnish. I use 15 layers of varnish; that takes a lot of time. I work on a series of books simultaneously, until I feel the process is complete. It is a very delicate process in which I use a flame that I control. My challenge lies in controlling the fire. I do not let fire do its own work.
Could you tell me about your choice of fire as a medium, in which the blowtorch is your paintbrush?
Burning is regenerating because it is something that has to do with living again. When you burn you don’t just kill something; you create life. Fire is something that is necessary to life. Burning is not an end, just like land is burned to create new soil. Fire is a conscious choice. My work is a dialogue between various instruments and materials such as blowtorches, soldering, gunpowder, resin, paint and varnish.
In the second room titled “Livres relies et Eventails,” where there are burned books with holes in the pages shown in vitrines and fan-like works on the walls, I refer to these works as sculptural paintings. Is that accurate?
These are burned works on a flat surface. But they show volume and there is a sense of the plastic idea because of the pleats, and holes in the books that are in vitrines. There is a sculptural effect—I call it the void effect—where paper is the material but volume is created through the relationship between the material and the immaterial. I began this technique of using pleats ten years ago in 2007, and now I transmit the same idea in these two-dimensional paintings through the use of fire and smoke and flame. In the “Constellations” room, the large holes burned on canvas create a sculptural three-dimensional effect.
Does your process vary from room to room?
[For the works in the room titled “Archipels,”] it is not the same way of burning, but at the same time it is a discovery and evolution. Here, there is volume. It is more saturated and complicated. There are five layers. I burn resin, I add burned paper, glued paper, painted paper, re-burn and continue the process. [In some works,] the external part falls off and reveals the burned underlayers.
I like the room “Pigment Fumes.” When it was pointed out that I paint with fire, I said yes, but from time to time I feel like an orphan because I am far removed from color. If I stay with fire, I am a painter after all, though I lose my sense of color. So this room keeps me in touch with colors. In these works, I only use pigments.
You chose abstraction after 15 years of experimenting with figuration and more traditional forms. How has this choice changed your work?
The result of abstraction was liberation. It allowed the viewer to enter the work and open it to interpretation. All [of my abstract] works are untitled. A friend of mine said one of my paintings represented the Armenian genocide. He saw [in the multiple pleats] bodies suffering, and others trying to stand, and some people trying to walk because during the genocide there was a long walk. For me, it is good that contemporary art gives everyone the freedom to see what he or she wants even if that’s not what I meant to create. The beauty of abstraction is the process and evolution of the work. The off and on, the doing and undoing, the destruction and construction and the constant questioning is as important as the end result.
JEAN BOGHOSSIAN’s exhibition during the 57th Venice Biennale. Photo by Maxime Le Grande. Courtesy the artist.
Who are the artists who have influenced you the most in your work?
One of the artists who influenced me very much was JMW Turner. Turner was the father of abstraction. His paintings created an atmosphere and I create an atmosphere that is abstract. My color palette is subdued, and I try to stay in the colors of fire even when I use paint in order not to contrast the color of fire too much. So the dialogue is more poetic and subtle. I try to remain in an ambiguity where you don’t know if the effect is from paint, or flame, or fire. My work on canvas is a constant dialogue between smoke and pigments. The fire is my alter ego. It does what it wants and I try to make it do what I want.
Do you feel your work achieves a dialogue between the East and the West?
I try to separate my work from my vision of the world, but at the same time it is present. I refer to many imaginative languages in these books [as seen in the room titled “Livres relies et Eventails”] through the way I burn holes on both sides of the paper; each sheet is worked on separately and then bound together to tell a story. Every book has its own language. We have many languages here on the same board and it makes me feel that we are all part of one world—not nationalists, but citizens of the world. It is implied discreetly in my message but I don’t pretend to have any political position in my artwork. As a philosophy of our foundation [the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels], we believe art is the answer. Art brings the world together, and art creates imagination where it is lacking in the world. Politicians and religions can be rigid, but art and culture create links in the world.
The Venice Biennale runs until November 26, 2017.
To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.