Azat Sargsyan
performance and video installations.
Throughout his creative life the meaning of his name, which in Armenian means ‘’free’’, has inspired Azat.
It is significant that the merging of the borders between the way to identification of the subjective and the objective, the very characteristic of schizophrenia, is the main topic of Azat’s project. Roland Laing defines the schizo-subject as one who does not feel the borders of his own body, who does not have the feeling of borders in general. Thus the schizo-subject merges with the reality and becomes inseparable from it, just as Azat’s hero is inseparable from the audience. And if we recall Laing’s another assertion that schizophrenia is the natural rteaction to the schizoid society and environment, our attention will focus on the environment represented by Azat. Azat’s environment stuffed into cellophane bags, which cover it with a ‘’freezing’’ veil, just like the reality of schizoid is filled with the cold breath. The reality around us seems to die, just as schizoid’s body is deprived of lively impulse. Reality becomes vacuumed, sultry: there is no air to breath, as in Azat’s cellophane bags. Reality is filled with emptiness and people become objects filling the empty space.
Curator: Vardan Azatyan
June 27-July 26, 2003
