Armenia Pavilion Wins Golden Lion of Biennale di Venezia

VENICE — Armenia’s pavilion won the Golden Lion for best national pavilion at the 56th Biennale di Venezia.

“Armenity/Haiyutioun: Contemporary Artists from the Armenian Diaspora” pavilion was located at the Mekhitarist Monastery on the Island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni.

Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia. Deputy Commissioner: Art for the World Europa, Mekhitarist Congregation of San Lazzaro Island, Embassy of the Republic of Armenia in Italy, Vartan Karapetian. Curator: Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg. Venue: Monastery and Island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni

In honor of the one hundred year commemoration of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the Pavilion of the Republic of Armenia at the 56th Biennale di Venezia provided an occasion to rethink the notion of Armenianess and broaden this reflection to the concepts of identity type and memory, justice and reconciliation, in the name of which many contemporary struggles are still taking place.

The pavilion is based on a people in diaspora, each artist engaging their specific locality as well as their heritage. The pavilion took the form of a palimpsest, with contemporary positions inserted into a site of historic preservation. In a year that witnesses a significant milestone for the Armenian people, this pavilion marks the resilience of trans-cultural

Armenity brings together 18 significant artists from different generations — a “transnational” assembly if you will – under the banner of a dispersed identity.