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A young boy made out of plaster sits in an unnatural and vulnerable position, knees splayed and hands clutching his heels from behind. He is naked except for a loincloth and a blindfold. A section of his sculpted arm is missing.
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This is Eytan, a sculpture by Vartan, a queer former Orthodox Jew from Chechnya whose sculptures and paintings mostly explore demonic and sexual themes. “My work always shows a state of human spirit,” he tells The Creators Project. “Demons and angels, pain and uncontrollable desire, fear and loneliness. The naked body in sculpture represents a spiritual condition. I am not interested in ‘politically correct’ art because it’s boring. Shock, controversy, and honesty. These are the three principles of my art.”
Eytan
Vartan was born in 1968 to a family of artists in Grozny, a city that was all but destroyed by Russian bombs during the Chechen war of the mid-90s. After graduating from school, Vartan spent a year at the Oil Institute studying geophysics and geology, but soon realized it wasn’t his field. He says, “to become an artist was not solely my decision. I would say it was my destiny.” He studied monumental sculpture and decorative art at the Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry, one of the most prestigious art schools in Moscow. In 1997 he moved to Philadelphia, where he was recruited by GM representatives as a designer. Since then, he’s worked at various car companies around the United States designing vehicles (including the Presidential limousine) and making art.
Inferno.Etude
Strongly influenced by the sculptural works and personal politics of his teacher Ernst Neizvestny, a prolific and powerful sculptor considered to be part of the Soviet nonconformist movement, Vartan’s work also toes the line of making art with an agenda to shock and inspire. Neizvestny is globally known for his large-scale bronze and concrete sculptures and monuments, erected all over the world from Taiwan to San Francisco. In 1962 he bravely told Nikita Khrushchev to “go to hell” when the Russian politician proclaimed his art “degenerate” at the Moscow Union of Artists exhibition. The incident is now considered a turning point in the role of underground art in Soviet society. Neizvestny later moved to New York and became fast friends with such characters as Rudolf Nureyev, Princess Grace Kelly, and Andy Warhol, who once proclaimed that “Khrushchev is a mediocre politician of the Ernst Neizvestny era.” Neizvestny has made an enormous contribution to Vartan’s experience: “His art and his absolutely monumental personality had a huge influence on everything I do,” he says.
Sculptor and His Model
That legacy of subversiveness is alive in all that Vartan does as an artist. His sculptures and paintings play on the demonic and sexual, perhaps partly as a liberation from his period of intense religious observance. “For several years, I was learning Talmud and Kaballah, and was living an observant lifestyle,” he recalls. “Time passed and I realized that my place in this world is to be an artist, a creator whose works can touch others. So it was over. Everything I learned stays with me, in my heart. It helps to understand this world, understand myself.” His religious period over, he was able to tell the truth to himself regarding his sexuality and continue expressing his queer identity through his art. Though the work didn’t undergo any drastic change at this time, Vartan admits that he became more honest with himself and with the people around him after coming out. He reflects on the changes within him and his art since arriving in the US: “Being born in a country where hatred and lies were the norm, it took me some time to adjust to my new form of existence, new culture, new social environment,” he says. “I believe that real art must be honest, controversial, and should never leave one emotionless.”
After Bath Masturbation
Vartan’s next endeavor is a massive project based on Dante’s Inferno, which will combine ballet, theater, projection, and sculpture in a way never done before. Vartan is working with a multinational cast of actors and high-end creatives like Mikhail Tchoupakov, ex-soloist of Bolshoi Ballet Theater, and Italian singer Angela Brambati to shoot a film and on-stage production of his version of Inferno. The overture is set to be shot in Armenia at the ancient Hellenistic Temple of Garni, the temple’s nine steps corresponding to the nine circles of Dante’s Hell.
White Torso
Vartan’s interpretation of Dante is based on dreams, forbidden fantasies and hidden desires. “It will be a new reading, new comprehension of the immortal poem, showing our real, internal world. Inferno is not an abstract concept, not something which stays apart from us. It is inside of us, we live it in every moment of our existence. My Inferno will be shown from a Kabbalistic perspective, very deep and very personal,” he says. The project promises to be the culmination of a life’s work that has explored the human condition through controversy, emotion, and honesty.
Prophet
Inferno
Yom Kippur
Inferno-Night Tears
For more information on Vartan, visit his website.
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