Part of the new generation of Armenian artists who came to the fore during and immediately after the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Samvel Saghatelian (also known as Sam Saga) has emerged as one of the more uncompromising and inventive figures of his time.

Having studied architecture, Saghatelian made a rapid transition to artistic practice, although his architectural background continues to inform much of his practice to this day. His first works were paintings, exhibited in 1988 and have since expanded in scope and media to include almost every form expression, from photography to video, installation and performance. Despite the technical and formal breadth of his oeuvre, Saghatelian remains remarkably consistent in his exploration of social conditioning of sexuality and sexuality’s political dimensions. To this end, he is a singular figure in contemporary Armenian art, which has rarely addressed issues of sexual identity politics as persistently and directly as Saghatelian.

Drawing from the repertoire of ‘classical’ post-modernism, Saghatelian’s works, in general, follow the principle of collage and ‘anachronistic’ assemblage. Whether paintings, photographs, sculptures or installations, the artist’s works deftly mix images and iconography that clash furiously and often shockingly, leading to an immediate provocation. Religion meets pornography, family values face anarchy, while gender stereotypes are so amplified that they eventually self-combust. Yet, what makes these provocations much more than a mere ironic, post-modern dismissal of patriarchal values, is the evident sympathy with which the artist ‘attacks’ the institutions of state, church and society. Saghatelian finds within the hyper-conservatism of his native culture a certain eroticism and the intense rawness of repressed desire. Behind the outlandish surface of Saghatelian’s series such as ‘Grotesques’, ‘Transromance’ and ‘Body: ghost phallus’ flows the gravity of emotional truth, transcending the irony of the post-modern to reveal the tenderness of desire and human frailty.

In 2001, Saghatelian was selected as one of the participating artists in the Armenian Pavilion of Venice Biennale. Working between Yerevan and Los Angeles, he has held numerous solo exhibitions and is currently engaged in a large scale, collaborative project with inmates of correctional jail facilities in Armenia.

Vigen Galstyan, 2014