The first series ( "Naked" Truth ") was made immediately after the emigration. In it the artist uses clippings from the main Communist newspaper Pravda, connecting them with the" capitalist "pornographic images. As a result, headlines, taken out of context, are direct commentary on the sex scenes. obscenely comic effect is reinforced by the fact that the official Soviet culture remained very deerotizirovannoy why run were expressions erotic nuances are not taken into account. But in the colloquial lexicon, in anecdotes and folklore of other samples of similar meanings accented and otherwise play with.
The second series ( "The Americans Russian eyes") is reproduced in the form of an enlarged fragments of the Soviet cartoons, showing the "savage grin imperialism." These images are deprived of the text, as they say for themselves. Promotional expression nonwaste Bahchanyanom converted into an art, the consciousness of the viewer affects only the form: line, the contrast of black and white scale.
Sam Vagrich Bahchanyan, - schedule, writer, artist books, installations and performances by - defines itself as "the artist's words." Using this language stamp purely ironic, he always played a favorite trick turning inspirational nonsense in elegant language formulas. In other words, easily operated methods of the discipline, which in the slang of contemporary art theory called deconstruction or critique of language. Explain any bahchanyanovskih tricks - meant to kill his essence, to keep the miracle of art to the technical banality. Instead of sleight of hand that the artist used his inexhaustible wit, which, as it should be witty, based on the spectacular savings. The quiet replacement pair of letters in a word, change of context, "confrontation" text with image, the return of metaphor to a literal meaning - need to receive the artist was always ready. "What do I do?" - He answered the question about his profession. - Tampering doing. I thought, concepts, sometimes one letter. "
An admirer of Russian Futurist poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh Bahchanyan was the predecessor, the initiator of many literature-centric tendencies in the Russian unofficial art. At the core of his creativity is the gift of wit and fine sense of the word. This characteristic bahchanyanovsky humor is not self-sufficient. His countless puns - the result of experimentation with linguistic formulas, in particular with the acoustic nature of language. Visual works Bahchanyana built similarly - on a system of creating new meanings of substitution, similes and establishing links between random shapes.
Vagrich Bahchanyan (1938-2009) was born May 23, 1938 in Kharkov (Ukraine). In mid-1960 he moved to Moscow. His first solo exhibition was held in 1968 in Moscow cafe "Blue Bird". In 1967 - 1974 worked in the department of humor "Literary Gazette" Club 12 chairs. " Collages Bahchanyana also been published in magazines "Knowledge is power" and "Youth". In 1974 he emigrated to the United States, where New York went on an artistic activity, to associate it with sots-art.
In 1977 Bahchanyan was an exhibitor "La nouva arte sovetica - una prospettiva non ufficiale" in the so-called "dissidents Biennale in Venice. In 1979 his works were shown at the exhibition "Artist's Book", held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pompidou Center in Paris. In 1981 he participated in the 16 th Biennial in Sao Paolo. Work Vagricha Bahchanyana are in the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, USA, in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg and other collections.
Bahchanyan published several books, including: "Autobiography of the author's forty" (1981); "Visual diary: 1/1/80 - 12/31/80" (1981); (co-authored with Sergey and Nahum Dovlatov Sagalovskim) "demarche enthusiasts "(1985);" Signac eye: puantel Aviv poem "(1986);" Not a day without a line (annual report) "(1986)," Poems of various years (1986), "a lot of the Flies: making art" ( 2003), "Cherry Hell" and other plays "(2005).
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