This book offers the reader a broad and accessible introduction to the evolution of Armenian modern and contemporary art, highlighting its contribution to international modernism and more recent developments in global contemporary art. It’s a first-of-a-kind illustrated guide in English for those interested in 20th and 21st century Armenian art by artists from the republic and its diaspora, which the authors suggest has been largely overlooked until now.
Written by Dr Iain Robertson, a specialist on emerging art markets and an honorary Fellow to Sotheby’s Institute of Art, with a contribution from Nazareth Karoyan, a founder and first president of the Armenia Institute for Contemporary Art, the book gives an overview of Armenia’s modern art developments and the era’s key artists.
It argues that Armenian modern art contains particular qualities, which differentiate it from that produced in other nations at the time and from the mainstream modernist tendencies emanating out of Western Europe. The authors examine how artists responded to and sought to survive the social and political environment stretching through the Soviet period and into the post-Communist era, helping to shape the Armenian art that we see today.