• 
• Round Table/Discussion

  Speakers:

  Susanna Gyulamiryan (Armenia) – curator, art critic, and director of ACSL
  Georg Schoelhammer (Austria) – curator, writer
  Nazareth Karoyan (Armenia) – curator, art critic, and director of ICA

  Moderator: Randall Rhodes – Provost of the American University in Armenia

  First International Art Fair in Yerevan (armeniaartfair.com)
  Yerevan Expo Center Pavilion, Armenia
  May 14, 2018

‘Shifting Perspectives on Art from Local to Global’ round table is a chance for the community to engage with artists, curators, and academics about issues that the art world is facing today. The topics of the discussion are the following:

• How does the local and national translate to the international and global?
• Can a social, political and cultural artistic perspective stand up to powerful cultural institutions?
• Does globalization taint the well, so to speak, in local art communities?
• Can national art be properly appreciated in a globalized context?

Art in the Age of Commercial Globalization

Discussion around the concept that art in the age of commercial globalization renders art inauthentic. How can a local, cultural, artistic practice remain authentic in places of trade and commodity? Do globalization and commercialization inevitably go hand in hand? What happens when art is taken out of cultural or political context: devoid of story, social context or history, is art for art’s sake enough? Does art lose meaning outside of the context in which it is created? Is there pressure to produce a certain type of work for the global market? Is art seen as a luxury or an investment commodity?

Identity and Place: Perception between Local, National, International, and Global

How ‘place’ impacts art and how artists transform their environment, and, in turn, how artists are shaped by their environment. The important role of the artist in society as a reflection of social, political and economic systems. Artists in reaction to government restrictions, oppression or rule of law. Artists: do they inevitably reflect their history or can they/should they counter their own cultural norms.