Three artists will represent Armenia at the Viva Arte Viva 57th Venice Biennale to be held May 13-November 26.
Young artist Rafael Megall will present the “Leopards in my blooming garden” exhibition. Any of his 15 works will illustrate the human-nature relationship.
“The garden is the Garden of Eden that symbolizes Armenia. Leopards are the people that live in that garden, live in harmony, but can be very dangerous if necessary, like the Armenian nation,” Megall told a press conference in Yerevan today.
Rafael Megall, 34, had a number of individual exhibitions at best art galleries of the world – in Florence, London, Paris, New-York and Toronto. He also participated in different biennales and won prizes and titles.
Brussels-based Lebanese Armenian sculptor and artist Jean Boghossian will present an exhibition titled “Fiamma Inestinguibile.” The name of the exhibition is inspired by the blowtorch flame, which Boghossian uses as a flamboyant brush, leading to a passionate quest as flames transform to create inextinguishable art.
Boghossian is one of the few artists globally who experiment by applying fire and smoke to various works. Fire is his artistic language of choice, and he uses a wide array of brushes and torches as his tools.
Armenia’s third representative Miro Persolja is of Slovenian descent and lives in Italy. He presented a large exhibition at the Armenian National Art Gallery in 2016.
Titled “Border no Border” Persolja’s exhibition will showcase how, through the language of art, some walls that divide nations can smoothly disappear.
Judging from the experience of the past years, Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Culture Arev Samuelyan believes that Armenia will not return from the biennale without achievements.
Armenia won the “Golden lion” in 2015 for the pavilion called “Armenity.”
This year the works will be displayed in two different venues: Collegio Armeno Moorat-Raphael, at Palazzo Zenobio, and Chiesa di Santa Croce degli Armeni, in Calle Dei Armeni.
The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia, represented by Svetlana Sahakyan, will be the commissioner of the Armenian national pavillion.