Marcos Grigorian
Marcos Grigorian 
| |
|---|---|
| Name in Armenian | Մարկոս Գրիգորեան |
| Birthplace | Kropotkin |
| Birth date | 5 December 1925 |
| Lived in | Kropotkin, Tabriz, Tehran, Yerevan, New York City, Minneapolis |
| Resides in | Yerevan |
| Death place | Yerevan |
| Death date | 2007-08-27 |
| Death year | 2007 |
| Languages | Armenian, Farsi |
| Ethnicities | Armenian |
| Dialects | Eastern Armenian, Persian Armenian |
| Ancestral villages | Kars |
Marcos Grigorian, also known as Marco Grigorian[1] (Template:Langx; Template:Langx; December 5, 1925 – August 27, 2007) was an Iranian-Armenian and American artist and gallery owner, and he was a pioneer of Iranian modern art.[2][3]
Early life and education
Grigorian was born in Kropotkin, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, to an Armenian family from Kars who had fled that city to escape massacres when it was captured by Turkey in 1920. In 1930, the family moved from Kropotkin to Iran, living first in the city of Tabriz, and then in Tehran. The Apadana gallery in Tehran opened in 1949, and began showing his work.[4]
After finishing his primary education in Iran, in 1950 he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome.[1] Graduating from there in 1954, he returned to Iran, opened the Galerie Esthétique, an important commercial gallery in Tehran.[citation needed] In 1958, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, he organized the first Tehran Biennial.[citation needed] Grigorian was also an influential teacher at the Fine Arts Academy, where he disseminated his enthusiasm for local popular culture, including coffee-house paintings, a type of folk art named after the locations in which they were often displayed.[5]
In the 1950s he acted in a few Iranian films, under the name "Marc Gregory" (Persian: گریگوری مارک).[6]
Career
He lived in the 1960s in the United States; first moving in 1962 to New York City, and then moved to Minneapolis to work at Minnetonka Center for the Arts.[1][7] In Minneapolis he started Universal Galleries which became an influential center for Iranian art in Minneapolis, and it existed at the same time along with a quickly growing Modern Iranian art collection that could be found at Abby Weed Grey's home.[7] In 1975, Grey donated her collection to form New York University's art museum, the Grey Art Gallery.[7][8][9]
In 1975, Grigorian helped organize the Group of Free Painters and Sculptors (Template:Langx) in Tehran and was a founder member.[6] Other founding artists included Gholamhossein Nami, Massoud Arabshahi, Morteza Momayez, Mir Abdolrez Daryabeigi, and Faramarz Pilaram.[10]
His series, Earthworks, was on canvas and it used a mixture of clay and straw called "kahgel", which is commonly found as a building material in villages in Iran.[11][12] He exhibited his clay and straw works in Yerevan in 1991. Grigorian was also an early artist with land art in Iran.[12]
Grigorian eventually moved to Yerevan, Armenia (which was then still a republic of the Soviet Union).Template:When In 1989, he traveled to Russia at the invitation of the Union of Russian Artists, visiting Moscow and Leningrad.[citation needed]
He later donated 5,000 of his artworks to the government of Armenia.[citation needed] In 1993, he founded the "Museum of the Middle East" in Yerevan with 2,600 works on display, with most of them coming from his own collection.[citation needed] His work is included in various museum collections, including at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City;[13] Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City;[14] Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art; Museum of Contemporary Art in Kerman; the Near East Art Museum in Yerevan;[15] and the National Gallery of Armenia.[citation needed]
Death
On 5 August 2007, Grigorian was assaulted and was beaten in the head by two masked robbers who had broken into his Yerevan home. It was speculated that the robbers believed, erroneously, that there was a large sum of money in the house, proceeds from the sale of Grigorian's summer residence in Garni. After an anonymous phone call to police, Grigorian was discovered injured and taken to hospital. He died of a suspected heart attack on 27 August 2007, a day after leaving the hospital.[16]
Personal life
Marcos was married in 1955 to Flora Adamian, but the marriage ended in divorce by 1960.[1] Marcos and Flora's daughter, Sabrina Grigorian (1956–1986),[1] was an actress.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Fouladvand, Hengameh (January 1, 2000). "Grigorian, Marcos" (in en). http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/grigorian. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
- ↑ "Artist Appeals to Create Marco Grigorian Museum" (in en-US). 2010-08-04. http://asbarez.com/83953/artist-appeals-to-create-marco-grigorian-museum/. Retrieved 2019-10-23. "Grigorian, who was born in 1925 and is recognized as the pioneer of Iranian modern art, died from a heart attack at his home in Armenia in 2007."
- ↑ "Մարկոս Գրիգորյանը կասկածում էր իր շրջապատին" (in hy). 15 October 2007. http://hetq.am/hy/article/25465. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
- ↑ "Modern and Contemporary Art in Iran". https://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/hd/ciran/hd_ciran.htm. Retrieved 2019-10-23. "The 1949 opening of the Apadana gallery in Tehran, and the emergence of artists like Marcos Grigorian (1925–2007) in the 1950s, signaled a commitment to the creation of a form of modern art grounded in Iran."
- ↑ "exhibit at NYU". http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/exhibits/iran/imagegrey/index.html. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Milani, Abbas (2008). Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, Volumes One and Two. Syracuse University Press. pp. 1000–10001. ISBN 9780815609070. https://books.google.com/books?id=ixU33FaG_dgC.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "Biography of Abby Weed Grey". 2019-07-31. http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/archives/grey/bioghist.html. Retrieved 2019-10-28.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "Iranian Painters, Marcos Grigorian". https://toosfoundation.com/category/resources-iranian-painters/. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ↑ "Midsummer Night #10, 1991". https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/457799?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=Marcos+Grigorian&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=2. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Milani, Abbas (2008). Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, Volumes One and Two. Syracuse University Press. pp. 997–1000. ISBN 9780815609070. https://books.google.com/books?id=ixU33FaG_dgC.
- ↑ "Collection: Marcos Grigorian, Untitled, 1963". https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78617.
- ↑ "Collection: Untitled, 1970s, Marcos Grigorian, Armenian-Iranian". https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/457798. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
- ↑ "Near East Museum, Marcos Grigorian Collection". http://www.tacentral.com/features.asp?story_no=10. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
External links
Article about collection
Museum of Conflict: Dispute over display space 13 years overdue for resolution
By Vahan Ishkhanyan
ArmeniaNow Reporter
The personal collection of Diaspora-Armenian artist Marcos Grigorian, which is on display in the Museum of Literature and Art, has become a subject of conflict.
The collection is the result of five decades of collection of the 81-year-old artist that he gathered while living in Iran and later transferred it to the United States. The collection has about 3,500 items.
Grigorian’s museum has been in its “temporary” residence for 13 years
In 1992, Grigorian donated his collection to the state at the request of the Armenian Government on condition that premises would be allocated for it. It was temporarily given to the administration of the Museum of Literature and Art and displays were organized in its four exhibition halls. The museum was opened in 1993 and during its opening Vice-President Gagik Harutyunyan expressed gratitude to the artist on behalf of the state. The authorities promised to allocate permanent premises to the museum within two years.
But a couple of years turned into 13 years’ waiting as no premises or status have been given to the museum. Now, the administration of the Museum of Literature and Art has demanded that its territory be vacated, since it had no possibility to put up its own displays (which include about 1 million items). If the four halls occupied by Grigorian are vacated, then the museum will get a possibility to present each field of art in a separate hall.
Grigorian calls his collection the Middle East Museum. However, it is much more embracive.
The Middle East collection includes Iranian faucets of the 12th-19th centuries, doorknockers, keys, locks, nails, Iranian-Turkmen silver ornaments of the 18th-19th centuries, 3 or 4,000-year-old bronze items, etc.
One section of the museum is devoted to photographs connected with Grigorian's biography, works – canvases and earth works that brought him recognition (http://www.marcosgrigorian.com). It also includes carpets made with his patterns and looms on which a carpet-weaver makes a new carpet for the museum once a year.
Due to the inaction of the Ministry of Culture, these two museums have found themselves in a state of permanent conflict. The Museum of Literature and Art demands that its premises be vacated; Grigorian says that his museum will move out only if premises are provided to it.
“Marcos’s museum provided by an order of the Ministry of Culture was not for exhibition but for preservation,” says Director of the Museum of Literature and Art Henrik Bakhchinyan. “The Vice-President and the Minister of Culture promised at that time that a status of a separate museum and premises would be granted in two years’ time and that the museum would move out, as this museum has nothing to do with us by its profile. Later we applied to all five ministers of culture for the museum to be removed, and for the exhibition dedicated to our culture to be presented at full length. But they always replied orally that this exhibition could not be touched as a negative opinion towards us would be formed in the Diaspora then and that they stop their donations. And now there are no premises. As a result, the largest cultural hub has been deprived of the possibility to exhibit its values.”
Now Bakhchinyan, bypassing the Ministry of Culture, has applied to the Republic’s President and Prime Minister.
The conflict has become so aggravated that either side calls into doubt the importance of the other’s museum. Grigorian says that the territory occupied by him was not fit for use and that he had made it fit. Bakhchinyan replies that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the museum of outdated communist propagandist literature was dismantled and it required time to organize a new exhibition (the display of the Museum of Literature and Art became possible due to Diaspora-Armenian philanthropists, the Ministry of Culture had not allocated any funds), and that part of Grigorian’s museum are goods brought from a flea market.
“Marcos is sitting on our throat. How can one hang bells instead of (works by artists) Aram Khachaturyan and Vahan Teryan?”
Grigorian flies into a rage when he hears his collection being compared to items brought from a flea market: “A person cannot be that ignorant to compare it with items from a flea market. There is no collection of such faucets in the world. My concern is that I am not a (billionaire philanthropist Kirk) Kerkorian, but what I brought is not any worse. This collection is priceless.”
Although some items like the ones in his collection could be purchased at a flea market once, for example Russia samovars, still their value is set high. Hakob Movses, who served as Minister of Culture in 1993 and through whose efforts Grigorian’s collection was brought in, says that at that time the museum was evaluated at $1.7 million and now its value has tripled.
Bakhchinyan also made a proposal to disperse Grigorian’s museum among different museums, since it is a mix and has no common contents. If a precise name is given to the museum then it would be called the museum of Marcos Grigorian’s lifetime creation and collection. It turns out that this was precisely the original name planned:
“We not simply asked, we begged for the museum to be brought to Armenia,” says Hakob Movses. “We asked so much, we said that the museum would be named after you. We set a task to ourselves to bring the collection to Armenia. We didn’t think about the premises at that moment. There was no territory at that time. But let them give it now, there are so many places, they are constructing Northern Avenue, or let them allocate a part of the territory given to Cafesjian.”
According to him, both sides are right and it is the government that is to blame.
Grigorian says that if the Ministry of Culture continues to do nothing and the state fails to fulfill its promise, then he will withdraw his donation through court action.
Head of the Cultural Policy, Museums and Libraries Department of the Ministry of Culture Anahit Galstyan only says that the Ministry is searching for premises and 3-4 times a year discusses the issue of the museum with Grigorian. However, she does not give any hope that the problem will be solved in the near future. “It is getting more and more complicated to buy premises as time passes,” she says.
More than a dozen buildings included in the list of monuments preserved by the state were demolished for the construction of Northern and Main avenues. And the Ministry of Culture did not oppose that. Nevertheless, the government could submit a draft according to which territory would be provided to Grigorian’s museum in the area under construction. But no such step was made.
This article is Copyright 2005, Armenianow.com - used with special permission.