Performance Art in Armenia

Live art in Armenia.

In Armenia, performance art emerged at the end of the 1980s, and strove to emphasize individualism and sensuality in opposition to the Soviet collective or ideological consciousness. However, it was not simply an expression of individual inner worlds, but also a critical process through which contemporary artists were re-examining the notion of the human body as a cultural and social construct. The collapse of the Soviet Union gave artists unprecedented freedom to experiment with all forms of contemporary, and more specifically, performance art. Unsurprisingly, their primary focus fell on gender, social, cultural and political issues. Through their provocative works these first representatives of post-independence Armenian art addressed concerns about the still-untested waters of capitalist culture and its ambivalent possibilities. Another aspect of the 1990s was the emergence of new technologies, such as the consumer video camera, that enabled the visual recording of time-based works. Hence, video art and performance, became two of the most popular and defining forms of “contemporaneity” in Armenian art of the time. They were also the main artistic means to open entirely novel ways of thinking about the body in Armenian visual culture at the dawn of the 21st century. (article here)