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President of the Armenian Arts Council (AAC) Vardan Karapetyan announced the launch of STANDARD 2017, the first edition of a triennial international exhibition of contemporary art based in Armenia at a news conference on Thursday.

“The STANDARD International Triennial of Contemporary Art has been initiated in Armenia. It is designed to have a roving nature, developing each time specific itineraries across Armenia,” Mr. Karapetyan said, pointing out that the first route of the triennial starts from Gyumri to Yerevan and then back to Gyumri.

In Mr. Karapetyan’s words, Armenia has been a solid base for thinking and developing a project such as STANDARD. “The Biennial of Contemporary Art in Gyumri, the vibrant art realities in Yerevan, the Golden Lion that the Armenian Pavilion was awarded at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, and many other achievements of recent years made our task easier.”

He informed that the very name of the triennial is inspired by the avant-garde magazine published in 1924, called Standard.

Vardan Karapetyan noted that the board of the Armenian Arts Council has invited Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg, curator of the Golden Lion awarded Pavilion of Armenia at the 56th Venice Biennale, as Chief Curator of “Standard 2017”. She proposes an extraordinary experience inspired by The Mount Analogue, an unfinished novel by French surrealist writer and poet René Daumal (1908-1944). Ruben Arevshatyan has joined the team as associate curator.

“The first edition of STANDARD International Triennial of Contemporary Art is set to be held from July to December 2017. Afterwards the event will be organized once in three years. The first triennial has brought together more than 20 Armenian and foreign artists. As a result, there will be a series of contemporary art exhibitions, as well as meetings and collaborations between the foreign and local artists, site-specific works and performances.

Today an exhibition titled “Distant Fragments, a retrospective of the modernist” by photographer Gaspar Gasparian (Brazil) will open at AGBU exhibition hall, curated by Ruben Arevshatyan.

“20 Ways to get an Apple listening to the Music of Mozart” and “Concert for a Fly” installations by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov (Russia/USA) will be displayed on Thursday at Hay-Art Cultural Center.

A curatorial collaboration with Vahagn Ghukasyan  will be held at the Gallery of Mariam and Eranuhi Aslamazyan Sisters, where a selection of the works of the two painters from the permanent collection will interface with a video work by Rosana Palazyan (Brazil) and short films produced by ART for The World including Murali Nair (India), Idrissa Ouédraogo (Burkina Faso), Jafar Panahi (Iran) and Jia Zhangke (China).

The second part of the triennial is scheduled for September.