World Public Forum "Dialogue Of Civilizations 2009" Opens In Rhodes

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM "DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS 2009" OPENS IN RHODES WITHIN THE FRAMEWORKS OF CULTURAL PROGRAM OF WHICH JIVAN GASPARIAN WILL PERFORM

ARMENPRESS
OCt 8, 2009

RHODES, OCTOBER 8, ARMENPRESS: The Seventh Annual Session of the
World Public Forum (WPF) "Dialogue of Civilizations" will open today
evening in the Island of Rhodes (Greece).

More than 400 experts of policy, economy, religion and culture from 60
states of the world will discuss the crisis consequences and scenarios
of global development paying a special attention to the history and
present situation of Iran.

"One of the Forum panel sessions is traditionally aimed at presentation
of a world famous civilization (Russian (2005), Indian (2006) and
Chinese (2008). This year a presentation of the Persian civilization
will be organized at this special panel," said the president of
"Dialogue of Civilizations", head of the "Russian railways" company
Vladimir Yakunin.

The Iranian delegation will be headed by one of the spiritual leaders
of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Tashiri. The
delegation from Iran to Rhodes will be consisted of prominent scholars,
public figures and craftsmen.

On the whole the discussions at the forthcoming Rhodes session of
the Forum 2009 will be centered at the present global situation that
demands to spell out conceptually sound foundation and requires
special efforts in order to preserve the "structural integrity"
of the global community.

The Forum is supported by a network of NGOs, as well as the UN, UNESCO,
the Council of Europe, OPEC, Organization of Islamic Conference,
research institutes and many individual persons.

Within the frameworks of the Cultural program outstanding scientists
present their works, different exhibitions and concerts are
organized. In October "the well known representative of modernity"
Jivan Gasparian as well as one of the leading music groups of
Europe – Interface Quartette from Germany will perform in Rhodes
in October. Seventh session of the Rhodes Forum will be finished
on Oct "Dialogue of Civilizations" (Forum) is an international
nongovernmental organization which was established in 2002 to search
for alternative ways to the global development in the conditions of
the globalization. Home office of the forum is registered in Austria;
its international coordination committee is chaired by the former
secretary general of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimer.

Co-chairs of the Rhodes forum are Vladimir Yakunin, Greek businessman
Nicolas Papanikolau, well known Indian futurologist Jaghish Kapoor
and former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Guzenbauer.

Ordinary Joe

ORDINARY JOE
Joe hockey

The Age
-20091008-gp33.html
October 9, 2009 – 10:29PM

With Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership in decline, the Liberal Party may
look to Joe Hockey. But does the affable shadow treasurer have what
it takes to lead? Misha Schubert reports.

THE story of how Brendan Nelson came to live in Joe Hockey’s garage
says a lot about the big man. It was mid 1997, Nelson’s marriage had
fallen apart and he was broke paying child support. He asked Hockey
if he could move from the room he rented in the house to the shed to
save cash.

Hockey not only agreed — he began to take an active interest in
Nelson’s welfare. Calls were made to Nelson’s old mates asking them
to keep an eye on him.

When Hockey went overseas, he brought back new running shoes for Nelson
to give to his own children, and refused payment for them. And the next
year — when Hockey was promoted by John Howard and Nelson wasn’t —
Hockey asked his dad to go around and check that his mate was OK.

"He was in tears because his son had been promoted and I hadn’t —
that’s the kind of person, the kind of family they are," Nelson
reflected yesterday. "Joe is decent, fair, generous, kind and
thoughtful. He can also be tough and he can be a thorough bastard if
he has to be."

High praise, especially given that Hockey voted for Malcolm Turnbull
as he deposed Nelson for the leadership in August last year.

There are a mountain of such stories about Joe Hockey. Acts of
kindness, big and small, often unbidden and many unheralded. The car
he offered to deposed Liberal MP Ross Cameron as his marriage broke
up. The refuge he provided at his farm outside Cairns for a young
Aboriginal girl who had been raped at Aurukun. The call he made to
public servant Godwin Grech at the peak of the OzCar crisis to check
if he was OK. And on and on it goes.

That he has a big heart is without question. Whether his intellect and
work ethic are equally colossal is a topic of greater dispute. His
friends and former staff i ydney yesterday, the former head of the
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Max Moore-Wilton, was heard
to describe Hockey as a "halfwit". Clearly not everyone is a fan.

There are two persistent criticisms of Joe Hockey. One is that he
speaks before he thinks. The other is that he is not across the
detail. On the first charge, his backers concede the point — but
argue it works for him.

"It goes hand in hand with being a passionate person," his former
chief of staff Matt Hingerty observes. "Joe wants to be honest. He
wears his heart on his sleeve and the more Machiavellian practitioners
of the political arts would say that’s a weakness; I’d say that is
a strength, it’s why the punters like him. He’s passionate and prone
to saying what he thinks."

The command of detail is more hotly contested between friend and
foe. His supporters note his ministerial career was full of challenges
requiring a grasp of technicalities: driving a major overhaul of the
tourism industry with his white paper; conquering obscure points of
industrial relations law to craft the Fairness Test backdown when
he was workplace minister; understanding the complexities of merging
six agencies into one as human services minister.

CRITICS beg to differ. They concede he is good at the punchy political
line — but accuse him of not having a clear and consistent political
philosophy. "He can come across as quite compelling and articulate
but you reflect on what he said afterwards and there’s not a lot to
hang on to," says one. "He tends to string together these great lines,
but when you look at the totality of it — what does he really stand
for? — and it doesn’t seem like much."

If opinions part on such matters, they converge again on the question
of Hockey’s considerable charm. He has an easy knack with people. He
is enormously likeable. And he is famous for his friendships across
the political aisle.

First there was all that television camaraderie with Kevin Rudd on
Sunrise — until Liberal strategists felt it was giving too much
eadkicker Anthony Albanese. Then there is his fondness for Bob Hawke,
who quipped when he learnt that Hockey was to become a father for
the third time: "Time to put the cue back in the rack, son."

To get a sense of Joe Hockey, look at the family tree. It is
a merging of two cultures. There is the mercantile tale of his
Armenian-Palestinian father Richard, who arrived in Australia in 1948
with nothing and built a career in real estate from scratch. His mother
is North Shore, cashmere and pearls, a big-hearted former model who
defied her own mother to date the "wog" behind the deli counter.

Like Rudd, Hockey has acquired wealth through the business aptitude
of his wife. A former Sydney Swans physio, Melissa Babbage is head of
foreign exchange and global finance at Deutsche Bank. They have two
children, Xavier and Adelaide, and a third due on October 19. They
mean the world to Hockey, and he is an attentive father and husband.

As Hockey’s political star has risen, so has the intensity of Labor’s
attacks on him. They’ve branded him "Sloppy Joe" — a slur aimed
not just at his size (a technique the Coalition used on Kim Beazley,
incidentally) but on his reputation for toil and detail.

A few weeks ago the ALP put about research suggesting voters were
dubious about his work ethic and eye for detail. He insists such
slings don’t wound him personally, but he understands they will only
intensify if he gains more traction politically.

Hockey is a sharper politician than the man he hopes to succeed in
time — but not just yet. Unlike Malcolm Turnbull, who is smart and
terrifyingly well-read but can get bogged down in the detail, Hockey
can deliver a cut-through line.

But to date he has shown no sign of the mongrel instinct when it
comes to leadership.

Last year some backers urged him to move to state politics, where
he would become premier in a canter at the 2012 election. Hockey
was said to be open to the draft, but refused to move against Barry
O’Farrell. State MPs didn’t want blood on the floor, and the idea evap

Hockey has made it clear to those urging him to replace Turnbull
that he doesn’t want bloodshed at a federal level either. He won’t
challenge, but he would be prepared to accept the job if the post
became vacant. Turnbull, of course, shows no sign of willingly
giving way.

How the issue will resolve itself still has a long way to run. But
his fans have no doubt that he has the pull to make it happen one day.

"There are leaders who have the ability to build momentum and those
who don’t," observes Cameron. "One of the magical factors is the
ability to make other people want to be on their team — I think Joe
has that in spades."

http://www.theage.com.au/national/ordinary-joe

Abraham And Taylor To Lead Off The Action In The Super Six World Box

ABRAHAM AND TAYLOR TO LEAD OFF THE ACTION IN THE SUPER SIX WORLD BOXING CLASSIC

PanARMENIAN.Net
07.10.2009 21:43 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Arthur Abraham and Jermain Taylor will lead off the
action in the Super Six World Boxing Classic in Germany on October
17. The former undisputed middleweight champion Taylor and former
middleweight titlist Abraham make for a terrific matchup on paper,
one with plenty of x-factors at play.

"I know Arthur is a big hitter. I know what I’m going to do and I
know what needs to be done on Oct. 17."

"I don’t worry about the crowd. The crowd doesn’t get in the ring. It’s
just me and the other guy."

"I’ve fought the best of the best in boxing. I’ve won some and
lost some. I just want to win this tournament. There ain’t nothing
else to it. It’s not about the money or anything but that I want to
win. I plan to just leave it all in there. That’s all I got. That’s
my state of mind right now. No excuses. Just go in there and fight,"
Jermain Taylor said.

FOICA Vs. OYK

FOICA VS. OYK

01 :39 pm | October 07, 2009

Politics

On October 7, 2009, the Common Jurisdiction Court of Yerevan’s Kentron
and Nork Marash communities will hear the action of the "Freedom of
Information Center of Armenia (FOICA) against the Orinats Yerkir
Party (OYK) The previous court sitting was adjourned as the OYK
representative wasn’t sent a writ of summons.

On June 26, the FOI Center filed a lawsuit with a Yerevan court and
requested the OYK to provide information on the party’s 2008 financial
report within five days. The party was to furnish information on
sources of donations in excess of 100-times the minimum wage as
established by law.

The Orinats Yerkir missed the deadline and provided incomplete
information.

http://a1plus.am/en/politics/2009/10/7/oyk

Turkey Will Apologize

TURKEY WILL APOLOGIZE
Naira Hayrumyan

hos15447.html
17:17:59 – 07/10/2009

We will continue the policy of international recognition of genocide,
regardless everything. So say the representatives of the ruling party
supporting the signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols in their
current form. And people believe them: it is good that the process
will not stop, they say, justice will prevail.

The question is who needs the recognition of the genocide after Armenia
recognizes the territorial integrity of Turkey. In general, what is
the meaning of recognition of genocide? Did all these 90 years, the
Armenians throughout the world seek for only the repentance of Turkey
and its apology for what it did? If only it were so, then Turkey would
have long recognized that, say, for the sake of the empire it had to
cut out the Armenians. As Turkish general acknowledged saying that
Turkey gained strength due to the fact that it destroyed its enemies
even inside the country. Yes, and ordinary Turks, probably, are proud
of having been able to have created a great country, even if on the
Armenian blood. Armenians are also proud of Tigran the Great, or of
fact that they battered the Persians. But if the Persians suddenly
demanded that we compensate for the massacre at Avarayr field,
probably we would not advertise our victory.

So, the Armenians 90 years sought recognition of the genocide, not for
an apology and not in order, like Serge Sargsyan says, to help the
Turks to understand their own history. Genocide is a legal concept,
and it provides for a particular responsibility. And it requires no
apology, but a subject of compensation, including territorial. If the
point was apologies, we could be satisfied with the fact that Barack
Obama has called the events of 1915 ‘Metz Yeghern’ and chose not to
name the word "genocide". Otherwise, Turkey would have to shell out
and give the territory to which rightfully claims Armenia.

So, if Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Turkey,
there would be no need to continue the process of recognition of the
genocide. You can even be sure that after that Barack Obama will forget
the Armenian, Turkey, after a hastily concocted historical commission
opinion, will apologize for the events of 1915, the Armenian lobby
will have nothing else to do.

http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/society-lra

Relive 1934 Classic Route To Australia

RELIVE 1934 CLASSIC ROUTE TO AUSTRALIA

TravelBite.co.uk
Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 10:07

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first scheduled flights
between Australia and England, Qantas Holidays is offering a chance
to relive the grand touring days in a classic Convair CV580.

Two once-in-a-lifetime trips are available: the 21-day London to
Sydney or the 22-day Sydney to London journey. Each will welcome a
total of only 22 passengers.

These 1934 aerial route to Australia trips are a real blast from the
past, each stopping in 17 exciting destinations. There will be great
views as the aircraft flies slightly over 6,000 metres.

But don’t worry, the Convair CV 580 is a fully pressurised,
air-conditioned jet-prop airliner operated by the New Zealand airline
Pionair.

The aircraft used for these journeys has been fitted with business
class style reclining armchair seats and plenty of room to move around
the cabin. Daily flying time is limited to under four hours.

The eastbound ‘Highlights of the Nostalgia route’ includes stops in
Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, India, United Arab
Emirates, Syria, Turkey and France.

The westbound ‘Highlights of the Classical Route’ includes stops
in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Armenia, Uzbekistan, India, Nepal,
Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia and Australia.

Excursions include a Ganges dawn cruise and viewing the Taj Mahal by
moonlight. Hotels include the Raffles, the Oriental Bangkok and the
Strand in Rangoon.

Other benefits, which have certainly become historic nowadays,
include fast, private check-ins and immigration formalities in each
destination. Passengers will also enjoy the use of executive lounges
with private departure gates to the aircraft.

There is a hot and cold galley from which complimentary drinks and
light refreshments will be offered throughout the journey. The aircraft
is also equipped with a full-size toilet.

travelbite.co.uk staff

Vardan Khachatryan: Mutual Trust Between Parties Is The Most Importa

VARDAN KHACHATRYAN: MUTUAL TRUST BETWEEN PARTIES IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
Lusine Vasilyan

"Radiolur"
06.10.2009 17:30

Discussions on the process of normalization of the Armenian-Turkish
relations were held at the headquarters of the People’s Party
of Armenia. The participants discussed the shadow aspects of the
Armenian-Turkish reconciliation process.

According to most of the speakers, the ratification of the protocols
is dangerous in the current stage. MP Vardan Khachatryan considers
that there are no serious professional calculations about the economic
consequences of opening of the Armenian-Turkish border.

"The Government has not presented detailed calculations, which
can be viewed as well-grounded arguments. We have no scientific
grounds. On the other hand, the level of trust between the parties is
the most important in similar cases. All the talks about the possible
developments can rest on a single factor – mutual trust between the
parties. But do we have that trust?

Turkey: IMF Meeting In Istanbul Marked By Police-Protester Confronta

TURKEY: IMF MEETING IN ISTANBUL MARKED BY POLICE-PROTESTER CONFRONTATION

EurasiaNet
g/departments/insightb/articles/eav100609.shtml
10 /06/09

The Tsarist-era Russian anarchist gadflies Mikhail Bakunin and
Peter Kropotkin are widely credited with coming up with the slogan
"anarchy is the mother of order." But on October 6, protesters mainly
demonstrated that anarchy is the progenitor of destruction.

An estimated 6,000 Turks gathered near central Taksim Square in
Istanbul on October 6 to protest the start of the International
Monetary Fund’s annual meeting. Most of the protesters — including
representatives of left-leaning political parties and trade unions
— were peaceable. But the crowd contained the usual sprinkling of
mischief-making anarchists, who proceeded to smash windows and cause
other property damage.

Clouds of tear gas enveloped the area, as Turkish security forces
acted resolutely to disperse the protesters. Authorities also used
water cannon on the demonstrators. Games of cat-and-mouse continued
to play out as riot police pursued protesters into side streets
in neighborhoods bordering the vast square. The Hurriyet newspaper
reported that shops in the Cihangir neighborhood were looted, with
protesters taking mostly lemons in order to counteract the effects
of tear gas.

Officials said they resorted to force because some protesters had
used pepper spray and had thrown Molotov cocktails in the direction
of law-enforcement officers. Fire fighters had to battle at least one
large blaze near Taksim Square that was allegedly set by protesters.

At least 50 people had been detained during the confrontation,
according to officials. A sizable number of protesters and police
suffered minor injuries, mainly caused by the tear gas and pepper
spray. One participant reportedly suffered a heart attack and
subsequently died.

At the IMF meeting, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
referred to the Istanbul mayhem while calling on delegates to rethink
globalization strategies, urging closer cooperation among states in
order to keep opportunities open to all. "The world needs to work more
and think more on this issue," Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as saying. "We
need to listen to the scream from the world, to the demands and the
protests going on outside this hall."

Editor’s Note: Jonathan Lewis is a freelance reporter and photographer
based in Istanbul.

http://www.eurasianet.or

Abdullah Gul Sure Possible Setting Up Of Subcommission Of Historians

ABDULLAH GUL SURE POSSIBLE SETTING UP OF SUBCOMMISSION OF HISTORIANS ‘WILL CLARIFY FACTS’ REGARDING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

ArmInfo
2009-10-07 12:59:00

ArmInfo. President of Turkey Abdullah Gul is sure that possible
setting up of a subcommission of historians "will clarify facts"
regarding the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish president expressed such
views in an interview to the Le Figaro.

Asked if Turkey is ready to start discussing the issue of Armenian
genocide to achieve full normalization of relations and opening the
border with Armenia, Gul said Turkey wants the historical commission
to be set up to establish facts." Asked if these facts have not been
established yet, Gul said: "No, of course. Those events happened one
hundred years ago. Indeed, there were tragic and sorrowful sufferings,
but there were mutual. If enmity were not ended, France and Germany
would not cooperate now. Our priorities is peace, stability and
cooperation in the whole region for the future of our children." As
regards the Turkey-EU talks, Gul said the problem is in Turkey and
in the necessity to achieve European standards.

A. Gul’s interview before his visit to France that got underway on
Wednesday was timed to the Days of Turkey in France. The president
is expected to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and high-
ranking officials.

The protocols on establishment of diplomatic relations and
normalization of relations initialed by Armenia and Turkey provide
for setting up the above subcommission of historians.

Five Clues To Arshile Gorky’s Work

FIVE CLUES TO ARSHILE GORKY’S WORK
by Gregory Lima

ticle/2009-10-01-five-clues-to-arshile-gorky-s-wor k&pg=3
Thursday October 01, 2009

Yerevan – In the 1920s in Yerevan and New York major new art museums
were created. In Yerevan, Martiros Saryan was establishing the
National Gallery, while in New York Alfred Barr was preparing MoMA,
the Museum of Modern Art.

A major art museum is an expensive judgment on what passes as worth
gathering and saving.

Each in its time required an explanatory narrative to justify its
acquisitions. Periodically each narrative requires renewed scrutiny in
the light of new developments, expanded horizons, and reevaluations. We
are in such a period today in Yerevan.

Both Yerevan and New York had to answer the question: What is
significant modern art?

Strangely, perhaps, the question at that time was much more difficult
to answer in New York than in Yerevan. At the turn of the century
and into the early 1920s, as far as the art scene was concerned,
Moscow was a suburb of the Parisian avant garde, often outdoing Paris.

Major Armenian artists of the period studied in Moscow, Paris, or both,
and were generally open, within their own perspectives, to the latest
"advances."

I grew up as a schoolboy in Arshile Gorky’s New York of the 1930s
and early 1940s, where I haunted the museums and galleries. In that
atmosphere of economic depression, Gorky’s Parisian-inspired outlook
on modern art was an especially hard sell. Personally, I didn’t
understand the formative work he and the small number of artists
attached to the American modern-art avant garde were doing.

The meaning is in the movement

One day, at one of the New York museums, I watched a very tall man
intently staring at a painting on the wall. As I watched him, for the
longest time his eyes would not break from the scene before him. For
some reason it made me uncomfortable. Deliberately, I walked between
him and the wall, breaking his contact.

He turned on me, angry. "It is paint," I said, defensively. "It is
not moving."

"It is a Cezanne!" he answered the rude boy. "The meaning is in
the movement."

I believe the tall man with strong, unblinking eyes focused on the
painting before him was Arshile Gorky. It was the best introduction
to modern art this critic was ever to receive.

What Cezanne brought to modern art was the fusion of time and motion
into painting, as the artist experienced it, and he did it in the
most innocent of all possible ways. He did it by painting in his own
style exactly what he saw, as he saw it. But his painting was not a
quick sketch executed in the moment.

When he stood up and stretched and then returned to the scene before
him, even though he tried to place himself exactly where he was, the
scene had changed, subtly or seriously. The change was in the light,
the color, or perhaps a slight altering of where he was sitting. It was
the same, but different in a visible way against what he had already
painted. Instead of erasing, altering, or ignoring what he had done
before, he learned to deliberately include it. How he did this with
his brush and colors made all the difference. In this simple act he
revolutionized modern art.

It depended on the artists who would follow him and how they
interpreted the innovation. At its simplest, it visibly extended
the plane of a color. Abstract the planes and you come to Cubism,
as with Picasso. But that was only one of multiple possibilities of
new artistic systems with the artist rather than the subject at the
center of the work, all of which may not yet have been explored. At
its heart lay the importance of the artist’s released creativity
in shaping his vision, his intention, and the hinted possibility of
conjoining multiple perspectives in a single composition.

America looks to Europe

The effect on modern art, including early-20th-century Russian art,
was so profound that Lenin, on the advice of his minister of culture,
was prepared (until the money too soon ran out) to erect a statue
of Cezanne in a Moscow square, to celebrate him as one of the major
revolutionaries of the times.

If Cezanne found favor among the revolutionaries in Russia, who
spoke for the disenfranchised, it was an entirely different matter in
America. The French avant garde, with their international influence,
had a certain snob appeal in America, and was largely the province of
the highly educated. Alfred Barr, establishing the Museum of Modern
Art, was a product of Princeton, with a Harvard Ph.D. The collectors
who depended on his educated eye began by looking to Europe, offering
little support for the few local aspirants. That support had to
come from a scant number of collectors, and strangely for the United
States, from the government. In the first six years of its existence,
from 1929 to 1935, MoMA spent no more than $1,000 on new acquisitions.

That Gorky was included in the first group exhibit at the MoMA in
1930 was a notable achievement, and it established him as a serious
artist. By that time he was about 26 years old and had transformed
himself from Manoog Adoian – the boy with the donkey in the Yerevan
market trying to sell to other starving Genocide refugees the
gleanings from the fields that his sisters had gathered after others
had harvested the crops.

He was to become one of the four pillars of Armenian modern art,
standing with Martiros Saryan, Hakob Hakobyan, and Ervand Kochar. Of
the four, to my mind, he is the least understood, cut off by tragedy
at the moment he had finally achieved the breakthrough into a wholly
original style of international importance.

Transferring the capital of modern art

Over a period of some two decades from that first exhibition at the
MoMA, he was a leader among a small group of a new wave that would
sweep the art world, transferring the capital of modern art from
Paris to New York.

It is not strange that recently in Paris, at the prestigious Pompidou,
a new series of exhibitions, showing the development of modern
art from the mid-20th century, started by giving over the whole
designated space for the exhibition to Arshile Gorky as the beginning
of the contemporary movement of which New York is the capital. The
recognition of his stature in Paris, and in contemporary art, would
have made him proud.

How the boy whose earliest memories were of Armenian home life and
growing up on the shores of Lake Van made this journey has been told
in several books. What can be gleaned offers some useful clues to
the particular nature of his art.

Five seem especially important to understanding the man and his art.

Late speaker

The first clue is that he reportedly didn’t speak until he was six
years old. He once boasted that he didn’t speak until he was eight.

Not speaking does not necessarily mean you do not have a language
of thought and observation. Certain aspects of observation may be
keener. It can mean you are not satisfied you know something because
someone gave it a name.

If you have an active, intelligent mind, and Manoog Adonian had a
very active and intelligent mind, you may look more profoundly at the
interaction of things in a way that may be outside the determining
grammar of verbal speech.

Perhaps you see that what surrounds the object may be as important
in its effect as the object itself – at the least it modifies it,
even when it may seem like blank space. In studying Gorky, do not
depend on words. Blank spaces are not blank.

In his own hands

A second clue is that his education was understandably spotty, with
large gaps when he might have or should have been in school. Perhaps
his most important learning all his life was by practical thinking
and doing.

He had to work from the age of 12, hands on, with little instruction,
experimenting with what works and what doesn’t, in order to produce
his own products for market. Among 200,000 impoverished refugees,
Gorky had to produce for a difficult market, to put it mildly.

Among his jobs in Yerevan to earn food for his family, he worked with
animal horn, creating and selling sturdy, fine-toothed combs. He also
found employment working with wood, learning joining as a carpenter.

Perhaps most significantly, he got a job as a typesetter. This involved
movable type, setting each letter and blanks between words in rows
by hand, proofreading words, sentences, paragraphs, correcting. The
final page was a product of many proofs and serious labor. It was a
process he would never forget, adapting it to his painting.

>From the presses he took pages home. In the night he would bind them
for sale the next day as pamphlets or small books.

This direct connection to printed matter would last for the rest of
his life. He was rarely without a small book in his pocket. Such
printed matter was a source of his constant study of the masters,
his delight in Armenian poetry, and significantly, the latest word
and illustrations from Paris, his vital umbilical to the avant garde
of modern art.

He went briefly to three different art schools in America, but his
education as an artist, like his education as an artisan in Yerevan,
was basically in his own hands. He was a quick study in drawing,
at which he excelled, and he could use it to help support himself in
school. Even at school he found practical application for his studies.

When he arrived in New York, after only a few years in America, he
believed himself to be a qualified art teacher. Not only did he land
a job as a teacher at a school in the center of the big city, giving
him a start, but he discovered that by stressing sharp observation of
the masters and committing to a hands-on approach to self-expression,
he was an excellent teacher.

Clarity of space

A third clue is that by accounts of other artists who knew him well,
he insisted on working hard every day, preferring to go without food
than without paint and canvas, pencils and paper; and he was meticulous
in the care of the tools of his trade.

It would seem that having decided to be an artist, he became a serious
artist every day for the rest of his life. In a major distinction
from other artists in the neighborhood, he would not work until the
floor of his studio was spotless, and he would get down on his knees
and scrub it when necessary.

I believe the clarity of the space his art inhabited as he worked
and his ability to precisely navigate that space with his tools to
meet his sensibility was a matter of primary importance to him.

Retaining a grip

The fourth clue is that he kept a picture of his mother close to him
as he worked – the mother that refused food and died of starvation
outside of Yerevan in his arms during the Genocide.

In America he had assumed a new, distinguished name and created an
alternate, somewhat romantic identity as a personal declaration of
freedom from the circumstances of his past. The trajectory of his life
had taken him far from his origins. He retained his grip on reality
by keeping before him who he really was and what that meant to him.

It is reasonable to assume his sense of who he truly was and how he
felt about it deeply affected his work.

An Armenian journey

Finally, he met Armenian artists and first came into direct contact
with oil paintings upon arriving in Tiflis, Georgia, from Yerevan
on his journey to America. I believe he saw himself in the mirror of
those paintings and painters.

In a critical moment of self discovery, his new life began not in
America but in Tiflis, I believe.

Tiflis was the eastern intellectual and financial capital of the
Armenian diaspora. It was the 19th-century center of the first
self-taught school of Armenian oil painting that had originated in
Nakhichevan, the Hovnatanian school. Saryan in that city in 1916
established the Union of Armenian Artists in the hope of safeguarding
the still-living Armenian legacy, and he would draw upon artists in
that circle to create the first home for Armenian art in Yerevan.

When Gorky arrived for his brief visit of some weeks, Ervand Kochar had
recently completed his studies in Moscow and was painting landscapes
in the park. Shortly afterward, Kochar would leave for remarkable
success in Paris.

Hakob Hakobyan was on a different life trajectory, and is still alive
and at work, but he plays a role in the as-yet-unwritten story of the
intertwined lives and tribulations of the four pillars of Armenian
modern art.

Of the four, Gorky had the shortest lifespan, dying by his own hand
at the age of 44, broken in body, arm paralyzed, unable to paint, at
the very height of his success. He is buried in Sherman, Connecticut,
in an all-but-forgotten grave a few winding miles down the back roads
from my parents’ summer cottage, where I now live. Standing where
he painted some of his best late work, I have wondered what he might
have produced had he had just a few more years of life. But that is
idle speculation; this is the Gorky we have.

The Eagle Room

The story took a historic turn this week in the empty Eagle Room, where
preparations are underway for the internationally significant event of
the opening of the brilliantly innovative Cafesian Center for the Arts.

Twenty-three packages of Gorky’s works were brought into the room
where they will be on display. As an ensemble they very well illustrate
Gorky’s strengths, his thinking, and his way of working. They stretch
over time from his early work to his probing experiments in what was
to be called Abstract Expressionism.

Several are startlingly beautiful.

Opening the heavy packing was the Cafesjian Center for the Arts
director Michael De Marsche, with a box-cutter in hand. The package
opening was random, with each work placed against the gallery wall. How
they were to be hung in the room for the anticipated Gorky exhibit
was to be determined in the next days.

To my delight, De Marsche, opening one of the packages, revealed
a Gorky study with the unmistakably heavy influence of Cezanne. In
that moment I was back in New York with the tall man whose gaze I
had broken as a child, and Gorky had come back to Yerevan.

The genial De Marsche was very much up to the occasion. Upon
unpacking each work he placed it for a brief spell on a table. He
has a showman’s instinct. For that moment each claimed the space
of the whole gallery. Gorky seemed to look out of his work from the
high reach of the Cascades to the whole of Yerevan beneath our feet,
and Gorky was in command.

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