Arman Grigoryan Արման Գրիգորյան

Shavarsh Khachatryan himself participated in that Third Floor. There were abstract, metallic works. He told us that there was a city of Panevezhys in Lithuania. He had discussed with that city the possibility of organizing an exhibition; there was an exhibition hall there. We went there with a group of artists. We took an exhibition. There, in the hotel, Kiki told me: “Arman, “Third Floor” is a good title, let’s keep it, so it is a group, we write a manifesto, read it for the others and see who wants [to join].” We wrote it; a line by me, a line by him. Certainly a dead art manifesto with a striking title. Everybody liked it: yes, let’s do it! When we were back, I submitted an application that we wanted to make an exhibition. A group exhibition, and I wanted it in Gyumri. Or there was no space in Yerevan, but there was one in Gyumri…. Anyway, the hall in Gyumri was a good one. The rector there was Lachikyan Samvel, who was also my classmate, and it was a very good exhibition. As a group the “Third Floor” first appeared in May of [19]88, in Leninakan, it was not Gyumri back then. The demonstrations had already started. I had so many Soviet medals stuck on me like that. I was walking on the street, people were coming and sticking, adding medals... You know, it was such a controversial period, that Karabakh movement. Some wanted the Soviet to stay, and solve the issue that way, some wanted the Soviet to not exist. For example, I once sympathized with Hayrikyan a lot for he was a supporter of independence, but at that moment it seemed the idea of independence was not very popular. I remember that we were posting slogans near Opera. People were saying “What are you doing? This is a provocation!”, etc…. like that… it is difficult to say anything, this Soviet-Armenian history is very complicated.

Look, the idea, as I say, was to restart and continue the tradition, the existing tradition that was brutally stopped by the authorities through repressions, censorship; that tradition, the tradition of modern art. This was not the whole picture. There were always figurative and non-figurative, conceptual, such kinds of questions. And look, we even made a performance “Greetings from the Underworld to the Union of Artists” in 1988, where each of us were such characters of rejected people that socialist realism rejected to depict, to accept that such people exist at all. For example, a soldier killed in Afghanistan, or, I don’t know, a young person beaten for being a punk. In short, those kinds of characters. And that, this performance of ours, since it was September of [19]88… or October… a few months later the earthquake happened and it was perceived as a prediction of the earthquake. In other words, not at all… people perceive art as more relevant, yes, related to this day. Not like those kinds of questions that artists explore, like restoring a tradition or developing something, more art theory… for example, for Nazareth [Karoyan], it was a matter of principle that we would be curators. For example, I gave a speech in the Congress of Artists’ Union in [19]87, where I was explaining that an exhibition is not held with a jury, it is not a sport; exhibitions are organized by curators, and being an exhibition organizer is already a work of art.

I have graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts and Theatre. I was admitted in [19]79, and graduated in [19]85, and immediately perestroika began. With my newly graduating friends we have tried to participate in several exhibitions in the Artists’ Union, it did not work out. Then during one of the discussions in the Fall of [19]86, where that same Artists’ Union was criticized by its president Sargis Muradyan, I said, “you do not know how to organize, therefore you organize bad exhibitions. If we were the organizers it would have been good.” They suggested me to organize. But as always, they did not provide a normal hall, an exhibition hall. They provided the conference hall on the third floor, and hence the name of the Third Floor movement. And since it was not an exhibition hall, I decided that we would display for six days everything that was forbidden, yes, in the Soviet Union, let’s say what was not accepted in literature, in music, and so on, modern music, I don’t know, punk music, break-dance was new at that time… In short, it was the first Third Floor, after which we were formed as the “Third Floor” group, and we made 6 exhibitions. The Third Floor has organized about 7 exhibitions until [19]94, until the first peace truce. The exhibition itself was called “Pacific” and was dedicated to peace, and 10 days later the Armistice was signed in the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

This question always comes up: where from did the artists know? I.e. it seems that the Soviet Union was a terribly closed country. Actually, it was closed in [19]34, I think. That is, the things that existed before [19]34, Cubism and so on, these things were there, or Kandinsky’s “The Spiritual in Art”, etc. As much as these were repressed, those memories were still there. After that, there were people who had that privilege and could go abroad, and they were our neighbors. Let’s say, they could go [abroad] in that same [19]70 and bring the album “Jesus Christ Superstar”. The very composers you knew as socialist realists, let’s say Arno Babajanyan, composed Soviet pop, but also avant-garde works… it is so interesting… and they were competing with let’s say Terteryan. So, that question… However, imagine that a Soviet artist pictures himself: “How come? Our country is progressive, we have sent Gagarin, right? How can we be backward?”

Look, imagine my dad’s generation, my dad’s and my mom’s, it was a search for the development of national style. They wanted a style that would be modern, but it would be felt that it was Armenian. And it was a great pride for my dad that he could stand and paint on a street in Moscow, Petersburg, or I don’t know, in other cities, and people would come and say “this is Armenian painting.” And he’d say: “you see, I was able to do it.” Meaning, he would have a style that could be recognized as Armenian from a distance. That the relationship between two colors is a painting, they were really obsessed with it. I think that they even succeeded in it. Even today. It seems that the color relationship, etc., there is something, or the style of painting eyes… You probably know that “Magic Lavash” cartoon was drawn by my father as very Armenian. You look and say: “this is an Armenian cartoon”, isn’t it so?

My father is the painter Alexander Grigoryan, and my mother is Arpenik Ghapantsyan, also a painter. My parents were artists of the sixties, of Thaw years, the founders of the second wave of the Armenian modern art, which is called “the artists of 60s.” Due to the efforts of their generation, and with their direct involvement, a Modern Art Museum was established in Armenia. Well, there was an exhibition in [19]62, which was called “Exhibition of the Five.” My father, mother, Minas Avetisyan, Siravyan Henrik and Lavinya Bazhbeuk-Melikyan have participated. It is a famous exhibition, “Exhibition of the Five,” and ten years after that exhibition the Modern Art Museum was opened. It was phenomenal for the entire Soviet space, with one exception: only Armenian artists were exhibited in our Modern Art Museum.