CAFESJIAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS TO OPEN IN YEREVAN

an-center-for-the-arts-to-open-in-yerevan/
Sep 30, 2009

YEREVAN (A1 Plus)-The Cafesjian Center for the Arts announce Wednesday
that it will be having a Grand Opening Celebration on Sunday, November
7 to inaugurate the $35 million dollar museum and art center, perched
atop Downtown Yerevan’s famous Cascades.

Taking over two years and $35 million to complete, the project
has transformed the Cascade into one of the world’s outstanding
contemporary art centers.

The Center will be official opened on November 8. The public is being
invited for a free day of touring the center, where they can see the
renovations that have taken place inside the Cascade and to enjoy an
outstanding schedule of exhibitions, lecturers, book-signings concerts
and events.

A number of exhibitions will inaugurate the Cafesjian Center for the
Arts, but the most prominent is undoubtedly Libenský Brychtova: For
Armenia. The Gerard L. Cafesjian Collection is one of the largest
collections of modern glass found in any museum, and its holdings
of works by the Czech couple are among the finest in the world. This
exhibition, specially designed and installed by Jaroslava Brychtova
herself, is a mere fragment of the overall Gerard L. Cafesjian
collection, which contains over one hundred pieces by the celebrated
couple.

The collaboration of Stanislav Libenský (1921-2002) and Jaroslava
Brychtova spanned nearly five decades, and the couple is credited with
elevating the status of glass to that of a fine art. They are two of
the most influential artists to have worked in the medium during the
20th century. Considered "national treasures" in their homeland of
the Czech Republic, the couple has exhibited widely in galleries and
museums throughout the world, and their work is in numerous public
and private collections.

Many of the works in For Armenia resemble Armenia’s own traditional
khachkar, infusing the work with spiritual meaning and forming a
tangible link between the artists and the land they have grown to
admire. The Libenský-Brychtova relationship with Armenia dates back
to the 1980s, when the artists studied the culture and history of
Armenia. The devastation of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia had a
profound impact on the artists, resulting in the creation of the
triptych Silhouettes of the Town (1989).

"The Czech and Armenian nations have a lot of things in history that
are quite similar," Brychtova stated in a recent visit to Yerevan. "I
think the Armenian public will appreciate and understand what we are
expressing in our art," she added.

Brychtova will make a rare personal appearance in Yerevan for the
opening of the Center and for the exhibition Libenský-Brychtova:
For Armenia. The artist will also appear at a number of the Center’s
opening events on Sunday, November 8th, including the Center’s ribbon
cutting ceremony, the opening reception for For Armenia, and a book
signing for the book Libenský-Brychtova.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress