On December 5, at 7:00 PM, the Institute of Contemporary Art invites you to the opening of the exhibition “Hail to the Union of Artists from the Netherworld” or “The Official Art Has Died”, which is dedicated to the remarkable performance that took place on October 23, 1988.
And on December 7, at 3:00 PM, come to the Institute of Contemporary Art to participate in a meeting with the participants of the historical performance.
On October 23, 1988, the opening of Yerevan’s official “Autumn Exhibition” was interrupted by a silent procession: a cohort of young artists, costumed as the living dead, glided through the galleries and exited without a word. The action made a blunt statement: since the official art sanctioned by the Artists’ Union belonged to the past—and was therefore “dead”—its proper audience could only be zombies. The intervention has since become a seminal milestone in the history of Armenian performance.
The same artists had held a semi-official debut the previous year, after hard-won negotiations secured them the Union’s Conference Hall on the third floor—an origin that christened the name of the movement “3rd Floor.” For this unofficial 1988 performance, initiated by Arman Grigoryan and Kiki, each artist offered a personal vision of the living dead: a livid vampire (Karine Matsakyan), a dead soldier (Kiki), a dark, shadowy figure (Sev), or, in a more conceptual vein, Achot Achot wearing a jacket inscribed “nature morte” and Grigoryan carrying a board reading “The Netherworld,” while others adopted makeup inspired by rock bands.
The materials presented in the exhibition document the course of the performance — a silent walk through the exhibition hall — and its aftermath, when the artists returned to the Youth Section office where they had dressed, lingering to pose for photographs and playfully celebrate their gesture. For these artists, performance was a disruptive language of protest: portable, low-cost, provocative, and public. The piece framed official culture as a mausoleum and the act of viewing as a ritual of mourning.
Their “Netherworld” metaphor operated in two directions: as a burial ground for exhausted official styles and, retrospectively, as a reflection of the group’s own underground position as artists either excluded from, or relegated to the periphery of, the sanctioned cultural sphere. A few months later, the first major exhibition (called “666”) of 3rd Floor was organized in the Artists’ Union’s exhibition halls, underscoring the 1988 performance as a symptom of a broader moment of paradigmatic transition.
The performance involved about twenty participants, including Achot Achot, Arman Grigoryan, Kamo Grigoryan, Vardan Harutyunyan, Boris Kazarian, Haïkouhie Kazarian, Kiki (Grigor Mikaelyan), Karine Matsakyan, Karo Mkrtchyan, Stepan Panosyan, Vahan Rumelyan, Sev (Henrik Khachatryan), Vardan Vardanian.
This exhibition presents the iconic performance through newly discovered materials, such as Aram Urutyan’s digitized archival 8 mm film footage and color slides from Arman Grigoryan’s archive, shown alongside seminal photographs by Zaven Khachikyan and some ephemera, as well as a new documentary by Choghakate Kazarian featuring interviews with the participants.
The exhibition is curated by Choghakate Kazarian and Ruben Arevshatyan.
The curators and the Institute for Contemporary Art Yerevan would like to express special thanks to the family of Arman Grigoryan, Aram Urutyan, Zaven Khachikyan, Armen Gevorgyan, Karen Arakelyan, and all participating artists for their support in preparing this exhibition.
