I INQUIRED ABOUT THE MATTER AND CLARIFIED IT FOR MYSELF
Levon Tokmajian Sculptor, academic

Yerkir.am
April 01, 2006

Recently you can hear on TV and radio or read in the newspapers
that illegal facilities are built on top of different buildings
belonging to art workers unions. The Armenian Artists’ Union was
not an exception. Construction works have started in the exhibition
halls. As a member of the Artists’ Union for forty years, I feel pain.

I am upset by the changes that have occurred after the collapse of the
Soviet system. Even though the art workers’ unions were established
based on socialist ideology they played an important role in developing
arts: they contributed to the organization of exhibitions and sale
of the artists’ works, they organized various trips for the artists,
allocated apartments and studios to them. In other words, they did
everything possible to encourage and unite artists.

Today nothing is left except the buildings and the exhibition
halls. The administration, the secretariat, the departments and
the president of the Artists ‘ Union are also left from the past. A
natural question arises: is it worth to preserve a structure that
does not function? Yes, the exhibition halls were demolished with
the intention of building new ones. I visited the construction site
because people call me from newspapers and TV asking what is going
on at the Artists’ Union.

I met the architect of the design Ruben Azatian and found out
that a construction company called “Renga” has arranged with the
administration and the secretariat of the Union to build a three-floor
building in the location of the exhibition halls. The basement
floor will host a cafeteria, the first and second floors will have
exhibition halls and will belong to the Union while the third floor
will be used by the construction company as office space. This is
what is happening with the Artists’ Union. How will the Union benefit?

It will benefit because it will get more space to use as exhibition
halls.

Wasn’t it possible to request the consent of at least some of the
1000 members of the Union? Of course it was possible. Today people
make a big noise of this issue saying that everything was done in a
secret manner without informing the members of the Union.

Everything around us is being destroyed and sold. Poor artists,
they are trying to do their job as well as they can and then suddenly
someone calls them and asks, do you know what is going on in the yard
of the Artists’ Union?

What are they supposed to answer? Then once again the question arises:
what is the purpose of the existence of the Artists’ Union?

Of course, the painters and sculptors need exhibition halls to show
their works. Then why not create an administration of the exhibition
halls that would organize the exhibitions for artists? Today the whole
concept of the Artists’ Union has been modified. Life has changed,
relations between people have changed. Armenians, Armenian art and
Armenian artists have changed. But the structure of our Artists’ Union
has remained the same. This is the reason why we don’t know what is
going on around us especially in the yard of the Artists’ Union. Thanks
God, I inquired about the matter and clarified it for myself.