Karen Sargsyan (1973)
Karen Sargsyan cuts, folds and glues paper into cylindrical human figures that may seem to have walked straight off the battlefield. 'I only use the best materials,' says Sargsyan. 'Acid-free paper, bookbinder's glue. It never fails. I colour my sheets of paper with acrylic paint, which sometimes gives them unusual structures.'* Self-taught Sargsyan works in soft pastel colours, giving his installations a friendly, inviting appearance, like a dress-up party with clothes in the attic. His technique also touches a child-like uninhibitedness: using only paper and scissors forces him to keep it simple and infuse spontaneity into the work.
But the subject matter is of the adult world, with a wink and a nod to the tableaux vivant.** Masked figures wearing carnivalesque suits of armour made up of layers of ruffled paper
parade before the viewer, with feathers, lances or a whip at the ready. The artist places his figures in conflict with their pasts. Sargsyan believes that people are formed socially and culturally by the zeitgeist and place where they live. Their lives develop along political or religious doctrine – what Sargsyan calls the 'factories.' This is why his figures are often rooted with their feet in lumps of clay: sucked into a blueprint of that life. But his work gives the impression of a theatre in which everything is moving and changing, because Sargsyan is an optimist. 'It's human to be pure, and trying to thwart the factory is a never-ending process.'
* quotations: M. Berendse, ‘Sterren in spé: Karen Sargsyan’, FD Persoonlijk, 15.06.2007
** tableaux vivant: the tableaux vivant, or 'living painting,' was an art form popular among the labour class on festive occasions and at political meetings in the 18th and 19th centuries. In it, stationary, costumed people were set in a symbolic scene with props and scenery. These scenes would be staged behind a closed curtain, and when everyone was in place, the curtain was opened to reveal the scene to the public. Tableaux vivants would often depict a societal problem while offering the perfect solution for that problem.
Source: I. Commandeur, ‘De utopie van een knipselkoning: Karen Sargsyan’, www.metropolism.com, 01.03.2008
