Armenpress News Agency , Armenia Monday "Creation" exhibition dedicated to Aivazovsky's 200th anniversary attended by 56.000 visitors YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 26, ARMENPRESS. A record number of people attended the exhibition dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Ivan (Hovhannes) Aivazovsky which was held in the National Gallery of Armenia from September 14 to February 15. The exhibition, titled “Hovhannes Aivazovsky: Creation”, was attended by 56.000 visitors. 52 paintings, 26 graphical, one decorative-applied and 20 documentary works were displayed at the exhibition. “Chaos: Creation of the World” was also displayed. Arman Tsaturyan, director of the National Gallery of Armenia, gave an interview to ARMENPRESS talking about the exhibition. -Mr. Tsaturyan, many people say that the Creation exhibition was exclusive. In your opinion, what was the reason of its exclusivity? -Have you heard about any exhibition in Armenia which had 56.000 visitors? This speaks about the exhibition being as unprecedented. We managed to do what for half a century any of the museums in our country didn’t. I don’t know whether it will be possible to repeat or exceed our record, but we definitely showed that it is possible to hold a good, beautiful and profitable exhibition with minimal investments. The exhibition is already over, but believe me, if it continued, the flow of people would not stop. For me and the people who participated in holding this exhibition, it’s a great excitement: success is that promotes people and leads to both professional and financial satisfaction. By this exhibition we showed that the cultural field has changed. It’s good from the one hand, and bad from the other, since always much is expected from the winner. -Who among the visitors were prevailing? -Everything on us is differentiated. For already three years the Gallery sells tickets online, and we know how many students, pensioners and school children visited us. Last time we have checked the data two months ago. The number of school children reaches 18.000. I am confident their number will increase within the course of time. -A large number of art-lovers visited the Gallery to see the “Chaos: Creation of the World” renowned painting from the collection of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Venice. How do you characterize this mysterious work of art? -As people live a mysterious life, their works do the same. The concept of the exhibition was as follows: “Chaos: Creation of the World” and “Noah goes down from Ararat”. The second birth of the world began from Ararat. The exhibition was such as well. I would state that the “Chaos: Creation of the World” is a virtuous work. Aivazovsky is an author of more than 6000 paintings, but not all of them are masterpieces. Our exhibition displayed wonderful works, and the “Chaos: Creation of the World” was one of them, a masterpiece that enriched the exhibition. -Once you said that the success of the exhibition was also linked with the use of latest PR technologies. Will you talk about this in more detail? -It is very important that all components of the exhibition are at a high level, starting from visualization that are ensured by respective devices, up to the color scheme of walls. While organizing an exhibition everything is important, such as the hall light, shadow and sound. When you reach the good level of all of these, it’s already success. Of course, the exhibition’s advertisement was also well thought and was implemented correctly. The video clip of the exhibition received two awards by the Adobe company. In the future we plan to organize the exhibition of paintings by Pablo Picasso. For this purpose we are holding talks with our foreign partners so that the best paintings in their collection will be displayed at our Gallery. I want to inform that the art-lovers can online acquire the copies of the best paintings presented in the Gallery’s collection which are on high-quality. In the near future we also plan to open a café named after French-Armenian famous painter Carzou in the Gallery’s foyer which will be a favorite place for all art-lovers. Interview by Angela Hambardzumyan English – translator/editor: Aneta Harutyunyan