Vagrich bakhchanyan biography of christopher

Vagrich Bakhchanyan was a follower of the Russian avant garde and a precursor of Moscow conceptualism and Sots art, as he strove to highlight the deadening absurdity of Soviet authoritarianism and officialdom

Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
17 October – 6 March

by NATASHA KURCHANOVA

Anyone interested in Russian art and its firm grounding in history, as well as its seemingly unending search for utopia, should visit the first US retrospective of Soviet dissident artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan (), currently on view at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey.

Bakhchanyan was trained in the art studio of a workers’ club in Kharkov in the late 50s and early 60s by artists including Vasily Ermilov, Alexander Kosarev and Alexei Shcheglov, who were keeping alive the tradition of the Russian avant garde during the time of the postwar stagnation.

From them, Bakhchanyan learned the importance of working with materials