Vahram Aghasyan

2007

Photography, 12 x (70 x 100 cm).
Materials: photograph on di-bond

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK007728).

Armenian artist Vahram Aghasyan focuses on cultural and historical processes taking place in his homeland. With photos, videos and installations, he predominantly examines architectural structures stemming from the former Soviet Union, which are now relieved of their functionality, in their present socio-political context. The artist’s interest in abandoned suburban landscapes is no accident, since here one can see examples of modernist architecture, which elicits pity, sadness and also sympathy, for the incompletion and absurdity of these non-functional structures bring them closer to art, and thus endow them with functionality.

The photo series Ruins of our time depicts deserted bus stops built in the 1960s and 70s. With their experimental concrete casting they today appear as rudiments of traffic planning in a no-man's land. Unused, never completed and with no infrastructural purpose, they do possess relevance in regard to the politics of remembrance as monuments of a history not yet overcome. The brief moment of photographic exposure stands in contrast to the monumentality of the stones falling to ruins.