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The sculptor’s creative credo is to reveal new plastic means of artistic expression beyond the classical forms established by tradition. This new form, however, should not be evaluated by any creative conceptual trend. With such a preconceived inference we might perhaps curtain off the most important, i.e. the poetic inspiration from the contemplation of the form so peculiar to the sculptor’s reserved, surprisingly immanent nature. That is it, otherwise we might stand long in front of the locked door of the Great Paradox on the perpetual way, extending from the material to the idea, until meaning substitutes what you want to say, and the inexplicable mystery of contemplation takes the place of the purport.
For Hovakimyan, this way extends in a perspective projected inwards: it becomes the spiritual field of feelings where return is an inevitable condition for progress, where the slightest trepidation of emotion predetermines the idea of the arising image, fermenting in an initial syncretic unity of sound, word and volume. In this sense, it is not at all superfluous to mention Hovakimyan’s gift for vocal art and literature, which highly conditions the dimensions and momentousness of the universal aspect in his plastic thinking.
Syncretism, of course is a quality of thinking, though it is not a quality logically balanced and strictly defined, which is so typical of the pragmatic spirit of our age. Thus we would try to elucidate the secluded constructive-spatial perception of his sculptures just within his attitude towards the model. However, the problem does not lie in the model, but modeling, i.e. the sculpture, the art piece on the whole, as a constructive idea in the foreseeable fact, which is projected in the universal texture of the archetypes of form-perception.
Let us recall Brancusi: is not the fascinating charm and power of his art in that? And we were not our attempts in vain, when at the cost of trifling mental efforts, we wanted to adjust his idea of the “Eternal Column” to the “palate of our thinking” in every possible way, ignoring the initial quality of the creative act which is beyond our notions of time and space, and when, through the consecutive order of simple archetype forms, we were unable to commune with the greatest mystery of the movement taking back, to the Beginning. This example is not to reveal parallels and ties, thus we could reach up to the forsaken ideas of the archaic art to which the sculptor has an obvious inclination.
The brightest evidence of that is the peculiar adoption of the old masters creative attitudes according to which the sculptural form is the essence of material, just like a spike is the essence of grain. Here is the true starting-point of syncretic thinking, most likely, of a world outlook. Let us also recall the tin original concepts, the grain is the axis of a cosmogony, which gave our ancestors grounds to summon all-embracing ideas of form-creation.
This small excursus will perhaps help elucidate in Hovakimyan’s art the stimulus which preconditions the creative act that expands the borders of his fantasy by the power of a constantly working code, and at the same time helps come into contact with the immanent mystery of the system “material-form-idea”. In this sense, one should mention his permanently growing interest towards the ancient art, especially obvious in the series of “Masks” and in his art piece called “The young woman”. “Flying angels”, his system of contemplative perceptions of analytical nature, is a system by which he attempts to conceive the idea of the absolute form with the consideration of the cosmic multidimensionality of the Egyptian pyramids. This quest has found its peculiar expression not only in his pyramid-like creations, but also predestined the birth of its cross-bearing mast has been perpetuated on the summit of the Holy Mount as a cosmic forerunner of hope and salvation.
Saro Sarukhanyan,
Art Critic
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