{"id":1875,"date":"2023-12-07T16:18:14","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T12:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/news\/1875\/"},"modified":"2023-12-17T10:58:25","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T06:58:25","slug":"iren-hargogh-arvestageteh-erbeve-chi-satarum-oreve-karavaruthyan-nur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/1875\/","title":{"rendered":"Nur: No self-respecting artist will ever support any administration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We spoke with Nur on “ABC Interview”<\/strong>. Sculptor, painter,
\ndesigner Arman Nur does not lack new ideas and creative projects. As he noted,
\ntimes and situations change, giving new reasons to create. Nur exhibits his art
\nall around the world, presenting Armenian contemporary art to art lovers.<\/p>\n

– How well do people abroad know Armenia? Don’t you think
\nthat our country should be reintroduced to the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– We have not had a coherent branding strategy for Armenia.
\nWe have not thought about how to brand Armenia before the world. We have
\nbranded it only as an old, once fairly powerful state, as a genocide survivor.
\nYes, that was of course necessary, but it is also necessary to show the Armenia
\nthat exists today. My meetings with representatives of various nations have
\nrevealed that for many of them, Armenia is left in the past; present-day
\nArmenia does not exist for them. That is why I try to present today’s Armenia
\nto the best of my abilities, not only through my own works, but also through
\nother talented artists who attend various exhibitions with me. We show the
\nworld that we exist, that we are present, we ask them to pay attention to us.<\/p>\n

– Today, Armenia is facing a myriad of problems. Can’t art
\nbecome the instrument through which we can decide some of the issues related to
\nsocial consciousness?<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Sad to say, Armenia is going through a cultural crisis
\ntoday, because the vocabulary, the language used today both by state officials
\nand by ordinary people, are nothing short of a disaster. Our biggest asset is
\nour language, and when we distort it today, by turning it into God knows what,
\ndisaster befalls us. We should put the brakes on this process. I would even
\nsupport the idea of censorship in this regard.<\/p>\n

– Has it ever crossed your mind to leave today’s Armenia,
\nbeset with problems, and to become part of the “society of winners”, in other
\nwords, to live in a country that does not have any serious problems?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– No, nothing like that has ever happened. There have been
\nmoments of weakness, for example a desire to stay somewhere abroad a little
\nlonger. I have received numerous offers throughout my life. If people learn
\nwhat offers I have received, they will think I have been crazy to pass up such
\nopportunities. I am trying to gain Armenia victory the way that I can. That is
\nmy mission and I have been carrying it out.

<\/p><\/p>\n

I view my homeland as my parent; it is this homeland that
\ngave birth to me. We do not get to choose our parents. Moreover, my homeland is
\ngoing through the most difficult chapter in its history; I cannot abandon it.
\nHow can one abandon his parents in need?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Today, the enemy has claims not only to our territory, but
\nalso to our culture: music, carpet weaving, cuisine, etc. Do you think our
\nresponse to this is adequate? <\/p>\n

– I do not fight it myself. Why, you may well ask?
\nBecause I surely know what belongs to my nation and to me. <\/p>\n

– But won’t our failure to fight cause outside observers to
\ndoubt as to whether it all belongs to us or not?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– What really matters is not to allow this doubt to appear
\namong us. If we are confident in what we have and continue to create, both what
\nwe created in the past and create now will automatically become ours. For
\nexample, if we continue our carpet weaving traditions and develop it, no one
\nwill doubt as to whether what we created in the past belongs to us or not.<\/p>\n

– Should the truth be above all else for an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– No self-respecting artist will ever support any
\nadministration. I don’t accept the artists who support any administration and
\nstart praising it. There is no need to praise; if they have done something
\nworthy of praise, that is quite normal, and there is no need to talk about it.
\nThat is the way things should be. But when there are problems, they should be
\nraised. I believe that no government can guide an artist. Art is free.<\/p>\n

– Do you think the role of the Armenian woman in culture has
\nbeen appropriately studied?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Women in Armenia probably receive the most lavish
\nattention. We say Motherland; Land is our mother, while the country is our
\nfather. For Russians, for example, Homeland is mother. Thus, those ceding the
\nland, cede their mother, so that they know. Women occupy a major role in our
\nsociety. For example, 10 years ago swearing in the presence of a woman was
\nunacceptable. Merely for that reason I can call those times wonderful. Now,
\nunfortunately, even women swear. There are no swear words in the Armenian
\nlanguage, and the ones used today are borrowings from other languages.<\/p>\n

– Do you think it is right to talk out loud about love for
\nthe Motherland and for women?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– I rarely use that phrase, “I love you”. Frequent
\nrepetition devalues it, as love is not a mere word, it suggests an action. As
\nfor words, one can utter them and move on… I am happy because I love and am
\nloved, but if we constantly talk about love, we will diminish its importance.
\nThe same holds true for patriotism. One cannot merely say that he loves his
\nhomeland and then leave for another country. That is not love: to go live in
\nanother country and long for your homeland. That cannot be called love. Why are
\nyou suffering? Come back! To live somewhere else, to do nothing, and then to
\nsay that you love your homeland — that cannot be called love.<\/p>\n

– Is the truth one for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Lying is disastrous for me. The worst thing is when you
\nlie to yourself.<\/p>\n

– I could not help asking this question to an artist. Who do
\nyou consider beautiful?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Will my answer be way too simple if I say that beautiful
\nperson for me is the one whose soul is beautiful? This may be a hackneyed
\nphrase, but that is not the case. Not only the beauty of the soul is beautiful,
\nbut also that of the mind, knowledge and wisdom, as wisdom is the antidote to
\nknowledge. The balance between wisdom and knowledge makes one beautiful. A
\nperson with encyclopedic knowledge is dangerous if he does not have the wisdom
\nto use that knowledge. When one is intelligent and wise, it can be seen on his
\nface. Artificiality is not beautiful either. I say, recently I have been looking
\nfor an individual, as individuality is getting lost under those artificial
\nfaces. Now, individuality is important to me: natural, genuine, simple… It is
\nthe best type of plastic surgery: Just gain knowledge and wisdom and you will
\nlook beautiful…

<\/p><\/p>\n

Interview by Lena Gevorgyan

<\/p><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n

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We spoke with Nur on “ABC Interview”. Sculptor, painter, designer Arman Nur does not lack new ideas and creative projects. As he noted, times and situations change, giving new reasons to create. Nur exhibits his art all around the world, presenting Armenian contemporary art to art lovers. – How well do people abroad know Armenia? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}