АРХИВНАЯ ПРЕАМБУЛА (не часть авторского текста)
Этот файл — русский перевод статьи проф. Мирослава Кливара «Бесконечность многомерных объектов Рудольфа Хачатряна», опубликованной в каталоге Cat-235-1 «ММСИ часть 2 (тексты)», Москва, 2004. PDF каталога в архиве: 04_Каталоги_PDF/01_Персональные/235-1_ММСИ-часть2.pdf.
ОРИГИНАЛ — на ЧЕШСКОМ языке (PDF): 09_Тексты_о_Хачатряне/00_Источники_Word/CZ/RKh-Txt-Word-0018_Klivar_original-Czech.pdf (12 страниц). Это рукопись/исходник от автора.
РЕДАКТОРСКАЯ КОМАНДА (из подписи в конце файла, дата 30.01.2004): Менеджмент — Сева Хачатрян; Душевный вклад — Екатерина Романова; Редакция — Нина Аллахвердова; Компьютерный набор, вёрстка — Матвей Соловейчик. Имя исходного файла «Кливар-Аллахвердова-Чмырева 5.doc» указывает на 5-ю редакцию; «Аллахвердова-Чмырева» — переводчики/редакторы.
OCR-опечаток в Word RU не обнаружено. Параллельный английский — в RKh-Txt-0018-Lng-EN.
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Undoubtedly the Armenian artist Rudolf Khachatrian adheres to the outstanding representatives of the world art. Painting, graphics, drawing, sculpture, multi-dimensional compositions…Exhibitions in Russia and abroad, catalogues, press…
However, Khachatrian’s art, capable to provide material to more than one art historian, is so complicated and multi-dimensional c that it can’t be explained by only one method, for example, by art criticism or by the methodology of art history. Such examination might be also problematic without semiotics (signs’ attributes and sign systems), without taking into consideration psychological, philosophic and psychoanalytical sides of his talent.
Let’s start with the artist’s drawings. Khachartian illustrates the ideas of the great artist, Ingres: “To draw does not mean to reproduce contours. Any drawing does not consist only of a line; it represents expression, internal form, and surface. Thus, what do we have besides? The drawing covers three and a half quarters of what we call painting.”
Having studied the Renaissance drawings by Rafael and Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Durer; and Rembrandt, having comprehended the main laws typical for the development of drawing in the art history from the 15th century, when the drawing was only a device that helped to construct painting, the artist has become the successor of the best traditions of classical art.
One can differentiate several aesthetic layers of the author’s drawing: first, it is a drawing of “individual mythology”, a portrait, a gesture, draping, the description of clothes, some external features. The detailed picture of “external features”, especially draping corresponds to the “center” of the portrait – face expression, gesture, and builds an artistic unification of internal and external psychology of a portrayed person.
This aesthetic view of Rudolf Khachatrian is close to the avant-guard movement of “individual mythology”, which is mentioned by the French author, Martin. However, it is not totally similar, as he does not work with photography.
As far as still-lives are concerned, here we can point out two directions: the main topic of one is connected with everyday life, which also represents “historic memory” of people; it follows archetypes of national sub-consciousness as psychoanalyses. However the second one is marked by the transition to the avant-guard thinking, to the so-called “figuracion libre” with interest for post-historic paintings, with transcription of everyday myths into an auto-biographic story. His work is close to postmodern painting,
Rudolf Khachatrian’s work is still very contemporary due to different reasons. For example, Zen Buddhism contends that any moment of our life is an appeal to eternity and that reality can be apprehended through everyday life. That allows us to say that Khachatrian’s still-lives lead us to the “real moment of eternity” and represent “absolute present”.
The most valuable is the field that we have titled “introverted and extraverted drawing”. As a rule, it mostly refers to the pencil or sepia drawing, the latest is mostly preferred by the author. Sepia started to be used only from the XIX century.
In the above-mentioned drawings the author investigates his own thoughts and feelings, but mostly from the extraverted point of view, when according to Jung’s philosophy of psychological types, objective reality and objective relations come to the foreground. However, it does not mean that there is no subjective view. The author is positively interested in the art object, in the portrayed person. We can notice similar tendency in the self-portraits and the drawings of women’s naked bodies, typical for Khachatrian’s works of the seventies. In further development of the artist this tendency gives a floor to the introverted depiction in self-portraits. Together with Jung we can ascertain that “unconscious I” exists in compensational co-existence. There appears the illusion of reality. The subject is focused on fantasy and vision. The best examples are the self-portraits of Khachatrian of 1998 – 2000 done in acrylic and the portrait “Karina” (1999). The most important here is dark structure of the background with a face of the woman. Or grasped and lightened woman’s body (“The Amazon”, 1999). Starting from the sixties, the body is one of the most important aesthetic values, both in introverted and extraverted drawing, for example in such works as “The Grandmother of the Artist” (1956) and “Sato” (1956).
Now it is time to describe the technique of Khachatrian’s drawings. Besides sepia and line drawings we can see charcoal drawings, pastel and even coloured pencils. These different techniques are similar because they help to create a soft poetic line of the drawing, various light tints of forms and shadows. Thus, in cubist period of the artist, where analytical approaches prevail, pastel drawing assists to show the difference of geometrical forms and simultaneously soften the sharpness of contrasting forms, “A Girl’s Portrait” (1961), “A Man in the Armchair” (1961), etc. There are two main expressive devices: classical surrealistic aesthetics of open forms (Two”, 1959) and a silhouette drawing (“Flight”, 1959) His work with lithography continues dematerialization of forms (“Adam and Eva”, 1969), where the author offers drawings and surface full of grains. Colored pencil is close to painting (“Youth”, 1974). The monotypes of the artist that started to appear in his art from 1969, are also interesting.
We have already told that psychoanalytical aesthetics is the basic starting point for understanding of Rudolf Khachatrian’s work. First of all one has to ascertain one of the main specific features of the author’s art – the symbolism of dreams. Khachatian’s works are characterized by the unification of rational and irrational moments and values. Yung characterized precisely the notion “symbol”; it is “the most complex formation as it consists of all psychic functions, and consequently bears neither rational not irrational character. However, it has one side that approaches the mind but there is another one, that is not approachable by consciousness, as it does not consist of rational data, but of irrational one, of pure internal and external perception…” Foolowing Yung’s studies on a symbol as the transformation of energy, we can point out the specific aesthetic energy in the Khachatrian’s works in multiplication of structures in drawings, paintings and sculptures. Structures bear the signs of anxiety and fear. All these are the feelings of the century. This energy is so dynamic that it leads Khachatrian to some Gulliverization, to the aspiration for bigger forms of art objects, to endless multiplicity of their relations, when giants transform into dwarves and dwarves into giants, as witnesses of eternal life inside a human being. Gulliverization is the main feature of this author’s iconology. Finally, this energy of aesthetic forms appears in metaphors close to the process of biological multiplication of cells both in nature and multiplication of inorganic structures.
The ideas of psychoanalytic N. Jacoby inspire us to analyze the structures of Khachatrian’s dreams; in his drawings we meet the exposition of his dreams, i.e. the development of the problems linked to the dreams (that concerns the drawings in monotype technique).
Further we notice the mixture of dreams, the development of action in aesthetic structures, its accumulation up to the climax, to the large-scale dimensions, and, finally, it appears the salvation of an aesthetic dream, dominated by “unconscious”. The final aesthetic “over-structure” of the work has a character of unclear notions, based upon subconscious and unconscious, linked to by psychoanalytic interpretations, censored and not-censored by senses.
Further aesthetic qualities are noticeable in the tension and dislocation of dreams. According to psychoanalyses, first no latent elements are allowed in aesthetic dream, then only some particles penetrate into the manifested dream, and, finally, similar latent elements transform into the manifested dream and merge into the whole. The author goes from a composition of one figure (for example, “The Sitting Woman”, 1990, “The Standing Woman”, 1990), through dual composition (“Sitting Figure in Front of the Mirror”, 1991) to the multi-figurative one, (“Multi-figurative Figures”, 1992), and, finally, moves to compound compositions (1995), to the synthesis of painting, sculpture and graphic drawing. According to the internal logic of system psychoanalyses by E. Chris, Khachatrian also uses aesthetic illusion as a relation between real and unreal. Thus, the symbol of a woman is the first one in the exposition of dreams.
The latest achievements of psychoanalytical aesthetics and phenomenology help us to penetrate into the artistic merits of Khachatrian’s dreams. According to Gaeton Bechellar, we can distinguish night dreams when the pictures are painted upon the black background (“Dialogue”, 1992, “Multi-figurative Composition III”, 1992, etc). Such background possesses very strong magical aesthetic function. In fact it uncovers two main elements: an absolute dream and a half-dream. According to the psychoanalyses, being, dissolved in the night is “nothing” and we are the drowned ones. It is important to remind that anxiety in the Khachatrian’s works sometimes transforms into the existential feeling of death. Night does not possess continuum. According to the psychoanalyses one night does not sort with another one. In the night dream we appear to be creatures without memory and history. We differ dream and imaginings in accord to Bachellar: a dream is a struggle with censorship, and imaginings develop a language of imagination that lacks conscious censorship.
One of the most important iconographic values of Khachatrian’s work is a doubled dream, a dream of a dream. While looking at his paintings and sculptures we feel that the artist is dreaming of dreams. For example, such multi-dimensional objects, that are distinguished by multiplications of figures (“Two Figures”, 1996), “Three Figures”, 1999), and also the works that lack the background in an endless surface (“Big Composition”, 1996, “Composition, Relief”, 2000), etc. Khachatrian’s dream possesses another typical quality, an anthropoid constant: protruded hands and legs of the figures, pointed into the eternal space and expressing the message of a human being. We can also say that “all organically real exists only because “I” is “Myself” (Querkiergor).
Khachatrians works are characterized by post-modernistic features, however, the author is not totally identified with them. What does it mean? First of all, according to Liotar’s characteristics of post-modernism, we can find “decomposition” in our author’s works, i.e. he does not create traditional art pieces but demonstrates isolated elements of visuality, the elements of the very notion of art itself, part of integral system of art. Liotar speaks about “delusion” of painting. It is mostly vivid in multi-figurative compositions (1992), when the traditional approach towards the depiction of a figure breaks and elements start to dominate. The next feature of post-modernism, according to Liotar, represents “reflection”, i.e. absolution from traditional conditions and methods, overcoming of rules. That is also typical for Khachatrian: he proceeds from paper to relief, from painting to synthetic art, from sculpture-object to anti-sculpture. Both categories of experiment and “pluralism” are reflected in Khachatrien’s work. However, the author disunites himself from strict definitions. He is not interested in sublime, according to Liotar’s understanding, he is mostly appealed by the psychology of absurdity and “I” anxiety. He uses experiment for purification of psychological conflict to the level of hallucinations. His art is dominated by magic mythology, i.e. development of archaic archetypes in the human psychology. Here one can speak about very complicated emotions and absolution from them. Khachatrian polemizes with the notions of bliss and phantom happiness. He is against “pure sublimity”.
Khachatrian’s aesthetics is characterized by an aesthetic labyrinth and emptiness. He takes into consideration “an empty space, passing through “the sight hole” These are the features of avant-garde art (Anrie Moor). Such “dematerialization” is the main feature of his iconography. It becomes apparent both in painting, (“Composition IV”, 1992) and in sculpture (“Multidimensional Object I”, painted wood, 1996), in various materials, including painted metal – (“Multidimensional Object IV, 1996). The aesthetics of a labyrinth is strengthened by the drawing, that goes through the whole object and unites all elements, (“Figure”, mixed technique on canvas, 1996). This drawing possesses spontaneous character of a gesture and exists in total harmony with psychoanalytical understanding of vibrating energy of symbols.
It is time to explore the understanding of the space in Khachatrian’s works. The important period in his development has obtained a title “multidimensional objects”. We consider this notion to be too narrow as, according to modern science, the category of space is closely connected with the category of time. Consequently, it is better to use a notion, introduced by the German philosopher Heidegger, “open time-space”, that takes us both to the past and the future. We think that this term thoroughly expresses the attempts of Rudolf Khachatrian, focused at the aesthetic decoration of the space.
The first period in the development of the open time-space of this author dates back to the 1990, when he started to use a paper relief: the form leaves the two-dimensional surface of the painting and transforms into the relief, mostly made of multi-layer paper material. The notion “time-space”, according to Einstein, is widely used to interpret cubists and futuristic architectural and art works. However, Khachatrian relates to the artists who try to achieve the forth dimension, the so-called “the tenth muse”. Here time is a very important factor. For example, several dimensional plans in his sculpture are created under various points of view and various types, geometrically speaking, platitudes of surfaces’ projections. From the point of view of the modern art history this part of Khachatrian’s work belongs to the avant-garde movement, called “paper-art”, which was represented at the international exhibition in Leopold Hot Museum in the German town Guren. The representative of this movement is the group “Zorro circle” (Oscar Golvek, etc). The most important is the program of these artists: “paper creates the space”. This program is also actual for Khachatrian, who approached this problem from the other end.
His paper relieves are close to Arp’s works, however, they witness that Khachatrian is looking for his own way.
It would be a mistake to include these works into the sphere of abstract art. Here we have to refer to semantic aesthetics: an abstract artwork is always notional (possesses signified designate). Consequently, art is always semantic, it always signifies values and does not represent things, but represents the evaluation of things, the complex of signs, where representative signs (icons) correspond to the non-representative ones.
The paper relieves bear both the representative signs reproducing reality and non-representative signs. The reproductive similarity to the object is not always vivid. Khachatrian has hidden signs, represented by the latent dream. The artwork is a complex sign that comprises the structure of signs. Morris offers four main methods of signification or unification of signs (he calls them “ascriptors”). For Khachatrian the most actual is the poetic language in semantic aesthetics that is connected with mythological language.
While evaluating the Khachatrian’s paper or carton works from aesthetic point of view, one might notice the whole row of representative signs, for example, “Adam and Eva”, 1990, or “A Man and a Woman”, 1990, where signs depict real elements of figures. Further, we can see non-representative signs that are based upon the form stylization (“Space Composition One and Two”, 1990, etc). This group of works consists of energy curves; though they can’t be defined as “abstract” but they aesthetically depict the processes of energy; consequently, according to Right, who stated that “real forms is always organic…; it is principle of structure, authority, architecture…”, we can call them organic forms. We are speaking about absolute beauty of Khachatrian’s work.
An absolute form is basic for the second period of his development in understanding of open time – space. This period is comprised by paper and carton figures (“Figure Project”, 1990, “Angels”, 1990) and other three-dimensional works. Later on, while working with three-dimensional objects, Khachatrian starts to use combined technique (paper – pigment and other materials). Finally, the third period is marked by multi-dimensional object in glass walls, that point to endless projections of time-space sculptures, built in accordance with orientation. That concerns the works of 2000 – 2001 when we can speak of turning cosmic objects in glass spaces. One can speak of a step towards the sphere of non-sensible perception in a sense of transpersonal aesthetics and title these works “the works of a cosmic dream”. The main aesthetic value of these works is in the fact that they flow in eternal space, metaphorically speaking, beyond gravitation. Compositionally these “hidden” works do not achieve the Earth surface. Cosmism of multi-dimensional objects strengthens the aesthetic value of eternity in Rudolf Khachatrian’s works. This ensures that he enters our consciousness as an artist of this eternity.
Professor Miroslav Klivar
ARCHIVE PREAMBLE (not part of the author's text)
This file is the English version of Prof. Miroslav Klivar's essay «The Eternity of Multi-dimensional Objects of Rudolf Khachatrian», published in catalogue Cat-235-1 «MMSI Part 2 (texts)», Moscow, 2004.
Note title nuance: Russian uses «Бесконечность» (Infinity); English uses «Eternity». The original is in CZECH (PDF in 00_Источники_Word/CZ/).
Russian version — see RKh-Txt-0018-Lng-RU.
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