Hrag Vartanian
Hrag Vartanian 
| |
|---|---|
| Birthplace | Aleppo |
| Lived in | Aleppo, Toronto, New York City |
| Resides in | New York City |
| Languages | Armenian, English |
| Ethnicities | Armenian |
| Dialects | Western Armenian |
| Spouses | Veken Gueyikian |
HRAG VARTANIAN was born in Aleppo, Syria, raised in Toronto, Canada, and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is a writer, critic and designer who regularly contributes to The Brooklyn Rail, AGBU Magazine, Ararat Quarterly, Boldtype and other publications. He is currently Director of Communications at AGBU, the world's largest Armenian non-profit organization. He blogs at http://www.hragvartanian.com
In his own words
Hrag Vartanian (he/they) is an art critic, writer, curator, and lecturer on contemporary art with an expertise in the intersection of art and politics. He is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Hyperallergic, an independent art publication created in 2009 with his spouse, Veken Gueyikian.
Under Vartanian’s leadership, Hyperallergic has grown to reach millions of readers per year and is credited with revitalizing arts journalism over the last two decades as audiences moved online. He has helped foster a new generation of writers who reject art market-oriented coverage to focus on criticism and reporting that appeals to a broader cultural audience.
Vartanian is the host of the Hyperallergic podcast, which has released more than 100 episodes and featured prominent guests such as Audrey Flack, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Lucy Lippard, Linda Nochlin, Michael Rakowitz, Shahzia Sikander, John Yau and artists at the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Throughout his career, Vartanian has forged a path of unconventional art writing that embraces ephemerality, speed, and new forms of criticism, all inspired by his own journaling practice and personal blog started in 2006.
His original namesake blog was very active between 2006 and 2010 and focused on politics, writing, and mostly art. The art blog had thousands of daily readers and included guest contributors. It was part of the Culture Pundits network. He also wrote the Re:Public column about street art and politics for ArtCat Zine (2007–2009).
His work often explores ideas around trauma, displacement, decolonization, diasporan consciousness, racialization, propaganda, community engagement and the evolving role of art in society.
He’s appeared in a number of documentaries, including Banksy Does New York (2014), about the evasive street artist’s unofficial residency in New York City in the fall of 2013, and the award-winning Out of the Picture (2024), which is a feature-length film about art critics living through a period of transformation for both art and media.
In addition to essays, such as “Where is the Public Discourse Around Art and Technology?” written in 2021 for the National Endowment for the Arts and “Imagining the Future Before Us” for The Artist as Culture Producer, edited by Sharon Louden, Vartanian has given numerous keynote lectures, including at the American Craft Council in 2019 about the role of craft in his family and how it influenced his evolution as a writer. He has also participated in hundreds of grassroots events in smaller venues across the country where he speaks to artists, critics and art lovers more directly and intimately.
Vartanian has also published literary essays in various anthologies and books, including We Are All Armenian (2023) and Artists as Writers (2025), and he’s been engaged with the topic of race in America, including a conversation with Sophia Armen and Aram Ghoogasian for the Los Angeles Review of Books (Quarterly Journal: No. 27, Mistakes, August 2020) titled “Beyond Jermag Yev Sev: A Roundtable on Armenian-American Identity.”
In the fall of 2024, he delivered a performance lecture, titled “Roots Across Diasporan Time,” with Aroussiak Gabrielian at the Artsakh Uprooted: Aftermaths of Displacement symposium at the University of Southern California. In 2025, he spoke as part of the Templeton Colloquium in Art History at UC Davis on “Cultural Heritage at Stake: Between Conservation and Criminality.”
Vartanian has created various curatorial projects through Hyperallergic that embrace liminal spaces, including a 2010 pioneering interactive art exhibition that explored social media, “#TheSocialGraph,” “Presents: Three Months of Mail Art” in 2011, and “The World’s First Tumblr Art Symposium” in 2013. He has also curated exhibitions or projects at Storefront BK gallery, Auxiliary Projects, Signs and Symbols, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Steinberg Museum of Art at Long Island University.
Vartanian has been a visiting critic at the Rhode Island School of Design, University of California-Davis, Brooklyn College, Pratt Institute, Indiana University and Columbia University, among many others, and was a Poynter Fellow at Yale University in 2024. He was a lead mentor at the Chautauqua School of Art from 2019-2022.
He is the recipient of the Susan C. Larsen Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Arts Writing by the Rabkin Foundation in 2024.
Vartanian and Gueyikian live in Brooklyn, New York.
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
- "An Imaginary Armenian Canadian Homeland: Gariné Torossian’s Dialogue with Egoyan" from Image and Territory: Essays on Atom Egoyan edited by Monique Tschofen and Jennifer Burwell (Waterloo, ON: Wildred Laurier University Press, 2006).
- "Andrew Demirjian: Indulge and Deny," The Brooklyn Rail (September 2005).[[1]]
- "Schwierige Wahrheiten: Die Schriftstellerin Nancy Kricorian (The Will to Resist: A Portrait of Nancy Kricorian)," in Porträt einer Hoffnung Die Armenier edited by Huberta von Voss (Verlag Hans Schiller, 2004). English edition forthcoming.
- "New York Life Recognizes Genocide Era Insurance Claims," AGBU Magazine (April 2004).[[2]]
- "Nazi Style Wars," The Brooklyn Rail (October 2003).[[3]]
- "Curating on the Margins," The Brooklyn Rail (Winter 2003).[[4]]
- "Who's Afraid of Atom Egoyan," The Brooklyn Rail (Autumn 2002).[[5]]
- "Artist Biographies," The Clement Greenberg Collection (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2001).
- FutureHype/Kitabet, edited by Carman Donabedian & Hrag Vartanian (Beirut: Haigazian University, 1998).
- "Chine Drive: An Arts & Crafts Community," in The Stuff Dreams are Made of: The Art and Design of Frederick and Louise Coates (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1997).
Times Square Art Square
New York, NY | Published on: October 16, 2012
Times Square Art Square (TSAS) today announced the appointment of world-renowned curator, editor and critic, Hrag Vartanian, as Chief Curator for the 2013 debut of its landmark “Art Square” public art exhibition in Times Square. Vartanian will select artists and works to display on Times Square’s iconic billboards and will advise TSAS in developing exhibition priorities for the organization’s artistic program going forward.
“With an incredible understanding of contemporary art and art history, combined with his commitment to cultural development and collaboration, Hrag exemplifies the program values and philosophy of Art Square,” says TSAS's Angela Moschetta. “He is an articulate and thoughtful critic, possessing a clear viewpoint that maintains the highest integrity while oft demonstrating a healthy and fresh sense of irreverence. In the cacophonous and somewhat chaotic space that is Times Square, Hrag is uniquely capable of making a cohesive and transformative artistic statement.”
2013 will mark the debut of Art Square. a large scale public art exhibition in which billboard advertising in Times Square is replaced with dedicated art installations. Organizers intend to grow the size and scope of the exhibition over time such that it repeats on an annual basis in a full, month-long format and also includes ground level installations, pop-up galleries, performance art and more.
“Today marks a very important milestone in the lead up to Art Square,” says TSAS Founder Justus Bruns. “To bring Hrag Vartanian’s knowledge of the curation of media, art, visual communications into the Times Square Art Square mix at this stage affirms the credibility and viability of the project while underscoring our unwavering commitment to artistic integrity. Hrag is always engaged in debates about the nature of public and private space and nowhere is that debate more poignant than in Times Square.”
Hrag Vartanian is a Syrian-born, Canadian-raised, resident of Brooklyn, New York. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the popular and progressive Hyperallergic art blogazine, which was the winner of Best Art Blog at the 2011 Art & Reality Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.
For more information on Times Square Art Square, visit www.artsquare.co.
“With an incredible understanding of contemporary art and art history, combined with his commitment to cultural development and collaboration, Hrag exemplifies the program values and philosophy of Art Square. He is an articulate and thoughtful critic, possessing a clear viewpoint that maintains the highest integrity while oft demonstrating a healthy and fresh sense of irreverence. In the cacophonous and somewhat chaotic space that is Times Square, Hrag is uniquely capable of making a cohesive and transformative artistic statement.” — Angela Moschetta
“Today marks a very important milestone in the lead up to Art Square. To bring Hrag Vartanian’s knowledge of the curation of media, art, visual communications into the Times Square Art Square mix at this stage affirms the credibility and viability of the project while underscoring our unwavering commitment to artistic integrity. Hrag is always engaged in debates about the nature of public and private space and nowhere is that debate more poignant than in Times Square.” — Justus Bruns