SOLUTIONS for Booth 5- Art Exhibit

SOLUTIONS for Booth 5
Art Exhibit

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This exercise said: "The Mashtots Avenue Festival's Art Exhibit booth will feature young local painters alongside the works of some Armenian Artists of international renoun. To organize the exhibit, we need you to go through the galleries and museums of the world in search of a few good paintings by famous Armenians. "

Task: Tell us what you found out about these famous Armenian artists at the Embassy gallery:

- Jansem (Jan-Hovanes Semerdjian)
- Arshile Gorky
- Martiros Saryan

Solution: The following is what can be found at the Armenian Embassies web page.


JANSEM:

1920
The roots of Jansem's deeply humanistic work lie in the heritage of Bruegel, Goya and Daumier. In 1922, Jansem (Jan-Hovanes Semerdjian) and his family fled persecution in Turkey for Greece, and subsequently to France. The young man studied in the Free Academies of Montparnasse, and then graduated from the Higher Arts School. He began exhibiting (at the Salon des Independants) in 1944.

The critics described him as the champion of outcasts, but the artist’s characters, even when in a state of extreme depression, never impose their sorrow on the viewer. They are proud and dignified. The artist reveals an unusual, deeply philosophical world woven from trials and trepidations; with confident drawing it spreads out like a network of blood vessels across the canvas and brings the object out of the depth.

Major Works;

Still Life with Maize, 1964 
Market, 1973 
Claudius, 1978 
Procession, 1978 
Homage to Goya, 1978 
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ARSHILE GORKY
1904-1948
One of the most famous contemporary artists, the founder of Abstract Surrealism, Gorky was described by Andre Breton as the most important painter in American history. was born in Western Armenia, in the village of Khorgom on the banks of Lake Van. In 1915, Gorky (Vostanik-Manuk Adoyan) escaped Turkish massacres with thousands of others refugees by fleeing to Yerevan, where his mother died of famine. In 1920 he came to the US. His whole life in the new country, which ended in suicide, consisted of years of hard work and bitter struggle. 

Gorky made a thorough study of the art of ancient peoples, including the Armenians, and passed through all the stages in modern art until his efforts crystallized in his own personal style. Taking his artistic language to its limits and hiding in plants, flowers, a plough and peasant attire the deep meaning of life, Gorky achieved a superb harmony of idea and feeling. His work was a disturbing poem of great love and nostalgia, and the retrospective of his work in the Guggenheim Museum in 1984 was quite rightly described as Armenian-American art.

Major Works;

Garden in Sochi, 1940 
Garden in Sochi, 1941 
How My Mother's Embroidered Apron Unfolds in My Life, 1944 
Agony, 1947 
The Plow and the Song, 1947
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MARTIROS SARIAN
1880-1972
The founder of modern Armenian painting, Saryan developed his painting style working in all the newest trends, and was the first Armenian artist to recognize the need to form an individual style founded on ancient national traditions.

The artist was born in the small Armenian populated town of Novy Nakhichevan, near Rostov on Don, and studied in Moscow under Valery Serov and Konstantin Korovin. Under the influence of his first trip to the land of his fathers in 1901, he created a cycle of works in pantheist spirit, "Fairy Tales and Dreams," stylistically influenced by Symbolism. 

>From 1909 Saryan turned to everyday life, taking as his subjects ancient sites untouched by civilization which bore the stamp of centuries of existence. Sowewhat generalizing reality, he captured the expressive outline of forms. His compositions were built up on a single plane through the equal distribution of large areas of color, whilst preserving the pure resonant color of Armenian manuscript illumination. Saryan's color is full of light. The contrasting yet harmonious combination of three or four main colors was used to create an expressive sense of the burning light of the sun, which seems to radiate from within the canvas. Light, and the resonant, ringing color which introduces wherefor the artist the eternal symbols of his homeland. 
    

Major Works;

Poet at the Foot of Aragats, 1906 
By the Well. Hot Day, 1908 
Street. Afternoon. Constantinopole, 1910 
Egyptian Masks, 1911 
Night Landscape, 1911 
Flowers of Kalaki, 1914 
Date Palm, 1911

Task: Find the URL, the email address and the street address of the Flora Jansem Gallery. Choose your favorite painting for the Art Exhibit, give us its name and size, and send us a copy of it as an email attachment.

Solution: The URL of the Flora Jansem Gallery is http://206.184.159.175/artforum/florajansem/ and its email adress is flora@cofrase.com . The gallery is located on 18, Avenue Matignon 75008 Paris. You could have chosen any painting as your favorite, here is one possible favorite. -

flora missing

"Nature morte aux pinceaux" - 1992. 33 x 46 cm

Task: Now off to Japan. We hear there is a museum there dedicated to the work of Jansem! Find the name and the URL of that museum. What are its opening hours?

Solution: The URL of the Japanese Jansem site is http://www.infocr.co.jp/hometown/hotaka/
museum-e.html The musems hours are -

Everyday 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
(10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. from mid-November - mid-March)

Task: Find Arshile Gorky's painting in the permanent collection of two institutions:

- The Museum of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles (MOCA)
- The Washington University Gallery of Art

We need copies, titles and dimensions.

Solution: A Gorky painting from MOCA is Betrothal I ( 51 x 40 1/16 inches).

gorkyla missing

One of the Gorky paintings from The Washington University Gallery of Art is Golden Brown (43 5/8 x 55 5/8").

gorkywu missing

Task: Many of Martiros Saryan's paintings have a permanent home in Yerevan, but it seems some can be found further to the north. Find paintings by the Artist in the following museums -

- The Martiros Saryan Museum in Yerevan
- The Kazakstan State Museum of Arts

We need copies of some of the paintings, their titles and dates if available.

Solution: One of the possible finds from Yerevan is Mount Aragats, (110x106cm), 1925.

saryany missing

Further north, we have something like The Settlement, 1932.

saryank missing