My childhood and adolescence were spent in Tiflis, at the “Hayartan.” I was born in January 1936 into the family of a theatre professional. At first, my father was the director and theatrical designer of the Armenian Theatre for Young Audiences, and after the theatre fire, he became the director of the Armenian Dramatic Theatre.
To all my first childhood words was added the word “finotdel.” My grandfather Yervand was a “leather tailor,” working at home—something that was harshly persecuted under “Soviet laws.” The punitive body was the “finotdel.” However, contrary to the “universal fear,” people were united, and there was no betrayal. With the arrival of the “finotdel,” the “leather” would scatter throughout the three-story house of the Korganovs. Perhaps we should return to the “house of Prince Yuzbashev”—the “Hayartan.”
We lived in a small living room, where the “spirits” of my ancestors also existed, constantly disturbing me. I had been prepared for this “state” by my mother, who always glorified the greatness of the ancestors who had recently departed this world. In “our room,” during my adolescent years, my mother often listened to the speeches of Charents and Papazyan. Sundukyan and Shirvanzade played chess. Later, my father was visited by Hrachya Nersisyan, Vahram Papazyan, Gagik Janibekyan, and almost “all the coryphaei” of the Armenian stage—writers and critics.
It was this environment that shaped the “charter of my conscience” and had an enormous influence on me, as did the constant “flashes” of my childhood memories: after the morning toilet, my grandfather Yervand’s “cleaning of the seat” with a red ten-ruble note bearing Ilyich’s portrait, and the constant conversations about my other grandfather, Hakob, who was exiled in 1937.
1956, Tiflis. Acting and directing education, attendance of painting courses at the Academy of Arts under the guidance of Professor Vasily Shukhaev, newly “released” from the “Gulag.” These were my years of self-searching in painting and sculpture, as well as in theatre. Influenced by Meyerhold, I was seeking my path, but unfortunately, in the era of a totalitarian regime, when a person was constantly surrounded by a repressive society, the search for an “exit” and for “self-realization” was only an “illusion.” Giotto (Gevorg Grigoryan) visited me, and sometimes, when in Tiflis, Kocharyan as well. Those were years of rebellion and self-affirmation.
The first conceptual work is born: “a composition consisting of toothbrushes, a laundry brush, and various perfumery items.”
1966, Yerevan. Faculty of Fine Arts—frequent meetings with Minas, Igityan, and Kocharyan, admiration for the art of the genius Arshile Gorky expanded my horizons. During this period, I created a series of works in the aesthetics of “pop art” under the title “Man in Space,” which were exhibited a year later at a two-day exhibition at the Artists’ House and provoked enormous controversy.
No less significant and sharp were Igityan’s speeches during that dreadful period. Together with Kocharyan, Minas, and a group of artists, contemporary Armenian art was formed within the context of global standards. Igityan’s merits in this process are widely known. In 1972, through his efforts, the Museum of Contemporary Art was founded and opened in Yerevan.
Minas—a great master, philosophical by nature, a master of the symbol of the “color-sign.” Yervand Kocharyan—the “father”-philosopher of Armenian contemporary art, an outstanding sculptor and painter, the founder of the “painting in space” movement created in Paris in 1933. Kocharyan was the living embodiment of that powerful era which was the dream of us all. The ontology of his personality was a brilliant example of devotion to ideas for all of us. He encouraged us by his very existence during that “terrible period,” having behind him the experience of 1937 and two years of imprisonment.
In fairness, it must be emphasized that all the “horrors” of the past have continuously penetrated like a “curse” and continue to do so to this day. Proof of this is the “plundering” of my studio during my absence by my so-called son, with the “shameful” traitorous silence of my friends and relatives. It was with such an “action” that my 60th anniversary was celebrated in Yerevan.
All my “performances,” as well as the system of “painting plus sculpture in time and space,” exist within the boundaries of the conceptual paradigm of art.
The system of “painting plus sculpture in time and space” I created in Moscow in 1970, without having Kocharyan’s experience. I introduced “time” into my system as a causal substance and adapted it to the contemporary concept of space. The essence of the system is the movement of one or several models in space, where three categories (=orders) interact: the speed of color, the pulsation of form, and the transformation of form.
Many of my colleagues do not dare to admit the fact of inheriting traditions, which is natural for many peoples.
I admire my young colleagues and the constantly growing generation of young artists. In 2003, in Yerevan, at the “Henry Elibekyan Gallery,” I presented the performance “Hamlet Is Not Hamlet, or Vengeance for the Father,” dedicating the project to the younger generation, represented by artists Grigor Khachatryan, Arman Grigoryan, Narek Avetisyan, and many others.
2005, published for the first time.