Armen Agop

Last updated

Armen Agop
Born
Cairo, Egypt
Known forSpiritual Contemporary Art
MovementTranscontemporary
AwardsPrix de Rome, 2000; Umberto Mastroianni award, 2010; Premio Sulmona, Presidential Medal of the Italian Republic, 2013
Website https://www.armenagop.com/

Armen Agop (born in 1969 in Cairo) is a contemporary Egyptian artist who is changing perspectives and pushing the boundaries on contemporary art. [1] [2] He is known for his spiritually charged contemplative works, which were described to reminiscence the harmony, balance and purity of the human soul. [1] Agop engages meditative practices in his processes, prioritizing inwardness and inner monumentality. Soberness, slowness and renouncement of demonstrative abilities, are features that characterize his ascetic approach. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Untitled (2018) granite sculpture by Armen Agop, installed at the front entrance of the El Alamein Hotel, El Alamein, Egypt. Armen Agop Untitled 2018.jpg
Untitled (2018) granite sculpture by Armen Agop, installed at the front entrance of the El Alamein Hotel, El Alamein, Egypt.

Agop was born Armen Guerboyan to Armenian parents living in Cairo, Egypt. [4] [5] Growing up between these two cultures with ancient roots, drove him to develop a perspective beyond the geographical boundaries. The dialog between the two heritages created in him a continuous reevaluation of values, a personal perspective unconditioned by east and west or ancient and contemporary. Agop was also affected by the dry landscape of Egypt, saying, "It was in the desert, where there seems to be nothing, that's where I learned to see". [1] [6] [7]

Agop showed an interest in drawing and painting at a very young age and by the age of 13 was a student of the Armenian painter, Simon Shahrigian. He completed the Faculty of the Fine Arts at Helwan University in Cairo. After graduating, he received an assistant researcher scholarship to teach sculpture at the same university for three years. [8]

Career

Armen Agop is one of the most important contemporary artists from Egypt and the Middle East. [9] From 1997-2000 Agop exhibited in diverse shows throughout Egypt and received the Sculpture prize of the Autumn Salon in 1998. In 2000, his national recognition was confirmed when he was awarded the Prix de Rome, the State Prize of Artistic Creativity in Egypt. After staying in Rome the first year on sponsorship, he moved to Pietrasanta, Italy where he continues to live and work today. In 2011 he was awarded the Premio Umberto Mastroianni by the Biennale Internazionale di Scultura Della Regione Piemonte. In 2013, he was awarded the Premio Sulmona, (Presidential Medal of the Italian Republic). [10]

His works are in the permanent collections of: the Egyptian Modern Art Museum, Egypt, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar, Villa Empain/Boghossian Foundation in Belgium, Aswan Open Air Museum, Aswan Egypt, Barjeel Art Foundation, UAE, City of Neckarsulm, Germany, Giardino di Piazza Stazione in Barge, Italy, and Coral Springs Museum of Art in Florida, USA.

Works

Agop is known for an ascetic approach to his work. [11] In his own words, "Simplicity is very complicated". Agop's work has also often been described as "Contrasting Art" where the contemporary and the ancient meet; his artistic presence springs from his cross-cultural philosophy. [12] "The ancient and the contemporary may seem very different, but I think the essentials are the same", he said in Art Plural: Voices of Contemporary Art (2014). [13]

Touch

The Touch series breaks boundaries usually present in experiencing art. Agop invites the viewer to touch the sculptures and the sculptures move in response. By breaking the visual boundary he takes us beyond the traditional experience, to physical contact. This expands the viewer's experience and renders it more intimate by freeing them from the tradition of divinizing art and the usual "Don't Touch.". [8] Agop says his work is about Freedom. The viewer is free to touch the sculptures and the sculptures are freed to move. [14] The granite sculptures balance on mere millimeters allowing for them to defy the stillness usually present in sculptures, moving once they are touched. By uniting the tangible and untangle in the viewer's experience, the relationship with art is then reconstructed, suggesting a new social consciousness between the viewer and the work of art. [8] [15]

"Armen Agop's sculptures repose in a secretly precarious stillness. These seemingly anchored forms consent to movement when pressed to it by our hands. Later, they inexorably return to their original position. As a result of their curved shapes, these black granite metronomes gradually slow and stop in a subtle dialogue between light and shade." Victor Hugo Riego [16]

Sufic

The term Sufic is derived from the spiritual heritage of Sufism in which the participants believe in the power of a single step to carry them beyond physical limitations. Reflecting Agop's own meditative process, [3] the Sufic series is characterized by a single contemplative, round form. In an ascetic approach Agop explores inwardness by renouncing all other forms for the pursuit of one. The focus then is about discovering the internal world and unique personality of each sculpture. The sculptures share a common material, color, and shape, yet radiate their own internal energy and personal state of being, whirling in their own orbits representing invisible parts of human consciousness. reflecting Agop's own meditative process [17] [13] [8] [18]

"Each work may be considered as a contemporary microcosm, unnamed, self-referential, but rich of past and present identity, still tied to previous work but announcing the forthcoming one, which enables the viewer to participate in the discovery of his inner energy, sharing in the identity." Maurizio Vanni [19]

Transcontemporary

In 2015, Agop coined the term "Transcontemporary" which is a rejection of the limited concept of Contemporary Art. [20] Contemporary is an ever-changing term, as what is now considered ancient was once contemporary. So, Agop mixes the 'ancient' with the 'contemporary' without obvious references to any time period, creating ultimate works that reject categorization. [21] By widening the time horizon, Agop believes that art can be relevant regardless of geopolitics, fashion or temporary mood. He believes that artworks derived from authentic human instinct are charged with experiences that are not limited to time or geographical boundaries. Therefore an artwork can touch the human aspect in us beyond its temporary condition. An authentic sculpture can cohabit equally in an ancient tomb and in a spacecraft without losing its radiating power. [22] Agop's work continues to make profound statements that engage the viewer to explore the future, but keep a constant remembrance of the ancient times. [18]

"Agop's objects seem to "materialize" and to confer a "worldly appearance" to the artist's spiritual concerns. He interferes in the nature of materials. He makes them to adopt outlandish shapes. The piece of stone is no longer speaking as its natural being but as the artist's bare self. Minimalism was the nakedness of forms; Agop's sculptures are about the nakedness of the human condition.

"These sculptures are not altars but mirrors of the viewer's soul." Rubén de la Nuez [23]

MANTRA

In the MANTRA series, Agop originates a gestural mantra. Instead of the transcendental vocal ritual Agop practices a physical one. With this gestural Mantra, he repurposes the repetitions into a meditative process of mark-making. Agop's innovative process involves renouncing his ability to paint or draw in favor of his belief in the strength of a single, sober point. Using the smallest possible pen nib (0.1mm), he applies colorful points on a black canvas repeating the gesture endlessly. The paintings become a materialization of time through the rituality of the gestural mantra, while invoking an optimistic source of light out of darkness. [24]

"Armen Agop unites sculpture and painting in a meditation on the power of darkness to generate light. The complete synergy of body, mind and spirit lies at the core of Agop's practice, for whom art is a spiritual form of asceticism." Claudio Scorretti [25]

Awards

Collections

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African art</span> Art originating from indigenous Africans or the African continent

African art describes modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, such as African-American, Caribbean or art in South American societies inspired by African traditions. Despite this diversity, there are unifying artistic themes present when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa.

Mohammed Seif al-Din Wanly, most commonly referred to simply as Seif Wanly was an Egyptian painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jawad Saleem</span> Iraqi artist (1919–1961)

Jawad Saleem was an Iraqi painter and sculptor born in Ankara, Ottoman Empire in 1919. He became an influential artist through his involvement with the Iraqi Baghdad Modern Art Group, which encouraged artists to explore techniques that combined both Arab heritage and modern art forms. He is considered to be one of Iraq's greatest 20th-century sculptors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Édouard Empain</span>

Édouard Louis Joseph, 1st Baron Empain, was a wealthy Walloon Belgian engineer, entrepreneur, financier and industrialist, as well as an amateur Egyptologist. During World War I he became a known major general. His major claims to fame are being the original winner of the contract to build the Paris Metro, and developing the town of Heliopolis in Cairo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Carolina Museum of Art</span> Museum in Raleigh, North Carolina

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that established its collection, the Museum has continued to be a model of enlightened public policy with free admission to the permanent collection. Today, it encompasses a collection that spans more than 5,000 years of artistic work from antiquity to the present, an amphitheater for outdoor performances, and a variety of celebrated exhibitions and public programs. The Museum features over 40 galleries as well as more than a dozen major works of art in the nation's largest museum park with 164-acres (0.66 km2). One of the leading art museums in the American South, the NCMA recently completed a major expansion winning international acclaim for innovative approaches to energy-efficient design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skunder Boghossian</span>

Alexander "Skunder" Boghossian was an Ethiopian-Armenian painter and art teacher. He spent much of his life living and working in the United States. He was one of the first, and by far the most acclaimed, contemporary Black artists from the African continent to gain international attention.

Salah Taher (1911–2007) was an Egyptian painter.

This article contains the index of articles related to Jainism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fowokan</span> Jamaican-born visual artist (born 1943)

George "Fowokan" Kelly is a Jamaican-born visual artist who lives in Britain and exhibits using the name "Fowokan". He is a largely self-taught artist, who has been practising sculpture since 1980. His work is full of the ambivalence he sees in the deep-rooted spiritual and mental conflict between the African and the European. Fowokan's work is rooted in the traditions of pre-colonial Africa and ancient Egypt rather than the Greco-Roman art of the west. He has also been a jeweller, essayist, poet and musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Bahgoury</span> Egyptian-French artist

George Abdel Masih Al Bahgoury or George Bahgoury is an Egyptian-French artist. An accomplished painter and sculptor, he is most famous as a caricaturist and political cartoonist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Empain</span> Art Deco building in Brussels, Belgium

The Villa Empain is a former private residence in Brussels, Belgium, which currently serves as a cultural centre and exhibition space. Built in 1930–1934 in Art Deco style by the Swiss-Belgian architect Michel Polak, the villa was commissioned by Baron Louis Empain, son of the industrialist Édouard Empain. It subsequently served as offices and an embassy before falling into disuse. After a restoration from 2009 to 2011, it was opened to the public by the Boghossian Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharjah Art Museum</span>

The Sharjah Art Museum is an art museum in the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. It was housed in Bait Al Serkal in Al Shuwaihean Area. It is one of the leading art institutions in the Persian Gulf region.

Ayman Baalbaki is a Lebanese painter. He studied at the Lebanese University and at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. His large-scale expressionist portraits of fighters made him one of the most popular young Arab artists.

Gregory Buchakjian is a Lebanese photographer, filmmaker and art historian. He studied at the Paris-Sorbonne University. He is the director of the School of Visual Arts at Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts ALBA and was co founder, with architects Pierre Hage Boutros and Rana Haddad, of Atelier de Recherche ALBA.

Maïmouna Guerresi is an Italian-Senegalese multimedia artist working with photography, sculpture, video, and installation. Her work incorporates Afro-Asian themes and symbolism with traditional European iconography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Henein</span> Egyptian sculptor (1929–2020)

Adam Henein was an Egyptian sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuri al-Rawi</span> Iraqi painter

Noori al-Rawi (1925–2014) was an Iraqi painter; a pioneer of Iraqi art who played an important role in shaping the Iraqi modern art movement through his roles as a practising artist, author, television presenter, art administrator and art critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barjeel Art Foundation</span> Organization and museum for Fine Art in the United Arab Emirates

Barjeel Art Foundation is a non-profit arts organisation based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The foundation was established in 2010 by Emirati commentator Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi to manage and exhibit his personal art collection. There are over 1,000 pieces of modern and contemporary art in the foundation's art collection. The organisation primarily focuses on artwork produced by Arab artists worldwide and includes paintings, sculptures and installations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual arts of Sudan</span>

The visual arts of Sudan encompass the historical and contemporary production of objects made by the inhabitants of today's Republic of the Sudan and specific to their respective cultures. This encompasses objects from cultural traditions of the region in North-East Africa historically referred to as the Sudan, including the southern regions that became independent as South Sudan in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Tarazi</span>

Alfred Tarazi, is a Lebanese artist. Tarazi is a multidisciplinary artist who works with mediums such as painting, photography, drawing, digital collage, sculpture, and installation, reinterpreting the memories of the Lebanese Civil War.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Egyptian Artists You Need to Know". Archived from the original on 31 March 2017.
  2. ↑ Ardia, C. A. Xuan Mai (12 December 2015). "5 Egyptian artists working with innovative practices". RevolutionArtNow.
  3. 1 2 "Armen Agop". Sculpture Magazine. September 2018. Archived from the original on 16 November 2019.
  4. ↑ "Art World Forum: Armen Agop". Archived from the original on 29 September 2020.
  5. ↑ "Armen Agop Guerboyan".
  6. ↑ "Fine Art Asia 2011". Archived from the original on 16 November 2019.
  7. ↑ Agop, Armen (19 December 2021). "Armen Agop: Contemporary Spiritual Art". The Culturium.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Neo, Veronica (5 March 2016). "A WORD WITH SCULPTOR ARMEN AGOP". www.artandonly.com. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  9. ↑ El-Adawi, Reham (26 August 2023). "A stone and two mantras". Al Ahram Online. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
  10. ↑ El Adawi, Reham (November 2013). "Romancing the stone". Al-Ahram Weekly.
  11. ↑ "Armen Agop". Archived from the original on 9 May 2018.
  12. ↑ "Armen Agop - 10 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy". www.artsy.net.
  13. 1 2 Peppiatt, Michael (2014). Art Plural: Voices of Contemporary Art. Fairport, NY: Gatehouse Publishing. ISBN   978-9810784089.
  14. ↑ Peterson, Jane A. (2014). Art Plural Voices in Contemporary Art (1st ed.). Singapore: Gatehouse Publishing PTE LTD. pp. 68–73. ISBN   978-981-07-8408-9.
  15. ↑ Lukoff, Mijntje (3 April 2014). "Armen Agop « TOUCH »" (PDF). Lkff Gallery. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 December 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  16. ↑ Riego, Victor Hugo (2010). Man and Stone (in English and French). Belgium: Lkff Gallery. pp. 26–29.
  17. ↑ "Undercurrent: Contemporary Egyptian Art" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 April 2019.
  18. 1 2 Dethal, Lor (1 June 2016). "Armen Agop". Wide Walls.
  19. ↑ Vanni, Maurizio (2012). Armen Agop Double Identity (in English and Italian) (1st ed.). Pontedera, Italy: Bandecchi & Vivaldi. pp. 6–9.
  20. ↑ Clement-Davies, David (29 March 2021). "Sculptor Armen Agop: 'Simplicity is complex'". Financial Times.
  21. ↑ "Exhibition of new works by Egyptian artist Armen Agop". Archived from the original on 27 September 2021.
  22. ↑ de Boer, Gillian (26 January 2016). "BETWEEN MAN AND STONE: INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST ARMEN AGOP". Art and Only. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  23. ↑ de la Nuez, Rubén (2015). The Riddles of the Abstract Sphinx (1st ed.). Singapore: Art Plural. pp. 5–9.
  24. ↑ McDevitt, Jules (2019). Q & A with Armen Agop (1st ed.). Dubai: Meem. pp. 18–25. ISBN   978-1-911561-06-4.
  25. ↑ Scorretti, Claudio (3 July 2020). "Artist Armen Agop". Fondazione Imago Mundi. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
  26. ↑ Clement-Davies, David (29 March 2021). "Sculptor Armen Agop: 'Simplicity is complex'". Financial Times. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  27. ↑ "I vincitori del Premio Umberto Mastroianni 2010". 1 November 2010. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  28. ↑ "Armen Agop". www.artprize.org.
  29. ↑ Nawar, Ahmad. "Aswan International Sculpture Symposium" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  30. ↑ "AGOP Armen, Artisti in Collezione | Museo dei Bozzetti". www.museodeibozzetti.it. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  31. ↑ "Coral Springs Museum of Art | Coral Springs, FL". www.coralsprings.org. Archived from the original on 11 September 2015. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  32. ↑ "Recognizing Local Art". EgyptToday. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  33. ↑ "Exhibition of new works by Egyptian artist Armen Agop". ArtDaily. Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  34. ↑ "Jardins en fête". Villa Empain – Fondation Boghossian. Archived from the original on 17 September 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  35. ↑ "Armen Agop". Barjeel Art Foundation. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.