Visual Diaspora
A Conversation with Marc Nichanian
Not only to be an artist, painter, sculptor, but to be specifically and emphatically a diaspora artist, meaning to make the diaspora visible to itself through visual arts. Such a program would of course entail, alongside the visual, an intellectual and cognitive effort, individually and collectively, avoiding the common narratives about the diaspora's existential condition, even fighting against them. This seems to have been the hallmark of Herman Vahramian's life.
During this conversation, recalling and revitalizing his acquaintance and friendship with Herman Vahramian, Marc Nichanian will attempt to reconstruct the phases and sometimes the bitterness of that life and work.
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Marc Nichanian is a diaspora Armenian philosopher, critic and translator. Nichanian has taught in France, the United States, Armenia, Turkey, and Italy. He is the author of many books, including a multivolume study of modern Armenian literature titled Entre l’art et le témoignage, the first volume of which, Writers of Disaster, appeared in English in 2002. He is the editor of the Armenian language Gam: An Analytical Journal, and the translator of, among others, Maurice Blanchot’s Récits, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Der Antichrist, and Antoine Berman’s L’épreuve de l’étranger. In the framework of Herman Vahramian's I/COM symposiums, Marc Nichanian has participated in many conferences and edited two volumes of the proceedings I & II of "La Struttura Negata: Cultural Armena Nella Diaspora" (Milan, 1979; 1981).
The talk is a public event organized as part of the solo exhibition "Herman Vahramian: Graphic Works (1970-1980s) at AHA collective's gallery. The talk will be in Armenian.
