Within the framework of the Suzie Q projects, Birgid Uccia and Bob van Orsouw are proud to present (for the first time in Switzerland) a solo exhibition of Karen Sargsyan's sculptural works. Sargsyan was born 1973 in Yerevan (Armenia). He lives and works in Amsterdam, where he recently completed his degree in art at the Rijksakademie.

Sargsyan's expansive installations are figurative in nature. The artist renounces the usual materials and for his sculptures uses paper that he cuts into monochrome and colored forms and superposes one on the other in several layers. Sargsyan does not produce papiers coupés in the classical sense by cutting out shapes and transferring them onto a two-dimensional support. Rather, within a three-dimensional space, he liberally arranges his life-size figures into stage-like scenes. Scenes that refer back to literary models or compositional schema that are familiar from art history.

Karen Sargsyan: Hamlet, 2007

(detail), Paper, metal, wood
200 x 300 x 270 cm, 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 x 106 1/4 inch
Courtesy Bob van Orsouw Gallery, Zurich

Click on image to enlarge.

Despite their fragile material, the figures seem voluminous and radiate a nearly physical presence. They call up associations of ancient heroes, warriors or figures from fantastic tales. Often Sargsyan assigns to the figures paper objects that recall stage props, conjuring up a narrative interpretation. Each single figure is defined by animated body language that, via the pliancy of the paper, is choreographed into a rollicking dance. The physiognomy is mask-like and often bears tragic-comic features, all of which lends the figures a character that is difficult to interpret.

In this exhibition, two installations from 2007 will be shown: "Shelter" and "Hamlet". What is very impressively present in these works is how spontaneous and playful Sargsyan's way with the scissors is, as though he were drawing with pencil on paper. The protagonists are not simplified into a formula, but parade in costumes worked out in great detail and near to splendid magnificence. In its under-stated color scheme, "Shelter" recalls a burlesque scene in which two would-be harlequins interact on a slightly raised platform. In contrast, the installation "Hamlet" takes up the topos of the tragic hero who finds himself subject to an inescapable destiny. The figure of Hamlet, who still today sparks ever new interpretations, fascinates the artist by the complexity of his character that oscillates between reason and conscience, mind and deed, active protest and passive despair: an exemplary illustration of an existential character.

Birgid Uccia