YEREVAN (Armenpress)—An exhibition devoted to Armenia may be held in one the world’s most prominent cultural centers, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 2017. Representatives of the Museum’s Department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters are currently in Armenia discussing the details of organizing a possible exhibition.
On March 1, the head of the Museum’s medieval art department, Griffith Mann, and the Museum’s curator for Byzantine art, Helen Evans, visited the History Museum of Armenia, toured in the cultural center, and inspected the exhibits.
Following the tour, Helen Evans spoke to journalists and noted that they are particularly interested in Armenia’s medieval art.
As a nation, we should not be too surprised when others take interest in our heritage and history. After all, many nations and cultures are displayed all the time in museums throughout the world. Some interests can be commercial and others purely cultural. But on the other hand, if the display is dedicated mainly to the Genocide and its ramifications, then the attention should be taken in a higher esteem. We should not be so desperate to get excited over the mere mention of someone wanting to exhibit Armenian culture. It exudes a victim mentality that is looking for validation from others.
Armenia’s role in the development of medieval architecture has been severely downplayed so far. There’s a very convincing arguement that places Armenian architecture of the 7th to 10th centuries as the main force behind the development of Romanesque, the forerunner to Gothic, considered generally a purely Western style. 7th century Mren cathedral in Eastern Turkey is on the brink of collapse, which would be one of the greatest losses to our common cultural Heritage. A major exhibition in New York would certainly help to give Armenia the more central role it deserves in a study of medieval cultural history (and no, I’m not Armenian).