Governor Maura Healey Declares April Armenian American Heritage Month

Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey has proclaimed April as Armenian-American Heritage Month and urged all residents of the Commonwealth to participate fittingly in its observance. We think that translates into, Visit the Armenian Museum in April!

The official proclamation was initiated by high school student Anahit Marutyan, and we could not be more proud of her accomplishment.

The following is a few excerpts of the proclamation:

Armenian-Americans have made significant contributions to the cultural, social, and economic fabric of Massachusetts, enriching the state with their traditions, values, and entrepreneurial spirit.

The initial migration of Armenians to the United States occurred due to the horrific large-scale massacres of the Armenian population by Sultan Abdul Hamid. During the Armenian Genocide, 1.5 million people were killed, deported, or forcibly converted. Armenian migration to Massachusetts continued after World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The early Armenian settlers sought physical safety, freedom, and liberty of conscience, which has empowered them and their descendants to prosper for generations.

In acknowledging the enormous challenges and sacrifices the Armenian people faced over these years, we reaffirm that the Armenian culture is an integral part of American culture, with strong influence across all spheres of life.

City of Watertown Names March 1st as Arshile Gorky Day

The Armenian Museum of America is joining Watertown’s Public Arts and Culture Department and a coalition of prominent organizations to honor the life and work of Arshile Gorky, a pivotal figure in the birth of Abstract Expressionism in the U.S.

(L-R) Watertown Public Arts and Culture Planner Liz Helfer, Executive Director Jason Sohigian, and 100 Years of Arshile Gorky Committee Leader Jack Dargon after the reading of the petition at City Hall

After surviving the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Gorky arrived in Watertown in 1920, joining the wave of Armenian immigrants seeking refuge. He lived in Watertown until 1925 before moving to New York City. Gorky's contributions to art are immeasurable, and his influence continues to shape contemporary art today.

In recognition of his contributions to the art world, his Armenian roots, and his lasting connection to Watertown, the City of Watertown has named March 1st as Arshile Gorky Day. The following proclamation initiated by Councilor Nicole Garner was adopted by the City Council:

WHEREAS, Arshile Gorky, born Vostanig Adoian circa 1904, is regarded as one of the most

influential artists of the 20th century; and

WHEREAS, Gorky’s innovative art, marked by emotional depth and a unique blend of personal

history and universal themes, profoundly shaped the development of modern art with his unique

fusion of abstraction and surrealism; and

WHEREAS, Gorky’s Armenian heritage, shaped by the trauma of the Armenian Genocide,

profoundly influenced his creative vision; and

WHEREAS, Gorky arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts, a town with a strong Armenian

community, on March 1st, 1920; and

WHEREAS, Gorky became a significant figure in the cultural and artistic life of the nation; and

WHEREAS, Gorky’s struggle with personal hardship, and his resilience in the face of adversity

have made him an enduring symbol of artistic perseverance and vision; and

WHEREAS, Gorky’s legacy continues to inspire and enrich Watertown, serving as a testament

to the power of art to transcend boundaries and tell stories of resilience;

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT PROCLAIMED that the City of Watertown hereby proclaims March

1, 2025 as Arshile Gorky Day in honor of his contributions to the art world, his Armenian roots,

and his lasting connection to Watertown.

The 100 Years of Arshile Gorky Committee is led by local resident Jack Dargon and Public Arts and Culture Planner Liz Helfer, in collaboration with the Armenian Museum of America, Mosesian Center for the Arts, and the Historical Society of Watertown. It is supported by Mount Auburn Cemetery, the Arshile Gorky Foundation, Watertown Cultural Council, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Watertown Community Foundation, and Watertown's Public Arts and Culture Committee.

Chris Bohjalian to Launch His Newest Novel, The Jackal’s Mistress, at Armenian Museum of America in Boston

In partnership with An Unlikely Story, we are thrilled to announce A Conversation with Chris Bohjalian, for the launch of his latest novel The Jackal’s Mistress. Join us for an unforgettable evening on Tuesday, March 11 as Chris discusses his new book, shares behind-the-scenes insights, and signs copies of his work.

Photo by Victoria Brewer

This special event will be held at the Museum at 7:00 pm, offering an evening of literary excitement and historical conversation here at the Armenian Museum which is located at 65 Main Street, Watertown, MA.

Chris will discuss The Jackal’s Mistress in a lively and thought-provoking discussion with Khatchig Mouradian, a Genocide scholar, lecturer at Columbia University, and the Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist at the Library of Congress. Together, they will explore the historical context of the novel and delve into the powerful themes of love and survival in times of conflict, followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

The Jackal’s Mistress is set in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, during the height of the Civil War. The story follows Libby Steadman, a woman who must navigate love and survival when she discovers a wounded Union captain and smuggles him in a perilous journey to Harper’s Ferry. As the two characters form an unexpected bond, their story unfolds in a sweeping tale of love, sacrifice, and survival amidst the chaos of war.

Chris Bohjalian is a New York Times bestselling author, known for his diverse range of captivating stories. From historical fiction to contemporary thrillers, his books—including Midwives, The Flight Attendant, and The Sandcastle Girls—have earned him a devoted global following. The Jackal’s Mistress marks his 25th novel, blending meticulous historical research with his signature evocative prose, creating a poignant Civil War-era love story based on real-life events.

“We are honored that Chris Bohjalian is launching his new book tour at the Armenian Museum. This will be his only appearance in the Greater Boston area,” says Executive Director Jason Sohigian. “The event will feature a conversation with his long-time friend and fellow traveler, the esteemed Khatchig Mouradian. They have told us the conversation will range from their journeys together to Historic Armenia to the importance of The Sandcastle Girls, one of our favorite novels.”

Space is limited so RSVP’s are required to attend. Each ticket includes a copy of The Jackal’s Mistress and entry to the event. Additional copies of the book, along with other titles from Chris Bohjalian will be available at the event.

New Cultural Districts Designated in Watertown, Holyoke and Westfield

By Christian Kelly

Mass Cultural Council has approved three new state-designated cultural districts in the communities of Holyoke, Watertown, and Westfield.

“This is a celebration of these three communities, their distinct local character, and their cultural vibrancy,” said Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director, Mass Cultural Council. “While Holyoke, Watertown, and Westfield are unique from one another and their peers in the Cultural Districts Initiative, what they share is a commitment to economic development through creative placemaking, celebrating – and prioritizing – arts and culture and using it as a tool to grow and support their local economies.”

As the Commonwealth’s independent state arts agency, Mass Cultural Council is charged with bolstering the creative and cultural sector, thereby advancing economic vitality, supporting transformational change, and celebrating, preserving, and inspiring creativity across all Massachusetts communities.

With the addition of Holyoke, Watertown, and Westfield, the Cultural District Initiative now encompasses 58 districts in communities statewide. The Agency’s Fiscal Year 2025 spending plan calls for a $15,000 investment into each of these state-designated Cultural Districts to encourage their ongoing development, programming, and success.

About the Massachusetts Cultural Districts Initiative

Established in 2011 by an act of the state Legislature, the Cultural Districts Initiative drives economic growth, strengthens the distinctive local character of communities, and improves the quality of life for families across Massachusetts. By supporting cultural and creative experiences, each of the Commonwealth’s 58 state-designated Cultural Districts attract tourists and entrepreneurs, which helps cities and towns develop their cultural sector and expand their tax base. Cultural Districts are located in communities of all sizes in every region of Massachusetts and are easy to navigate areas with a density of cultural facilities, activities, and assets. They act as hubs of cultural, artistic, and economic activity, and offer a place-based identity to collaborative community initiatives.

State law stipulates that state-designated Cultural Districts are eligible to benefit from programs, services, and economic development tools offered by state agencies, constitutional offices, and quasi-governmental agencies. This year the Healey-Driscoll Administration advanced this notion by adopting policies prioritizing grant applications submitted to the Community One Stop for Growth portal with projects located within Cultural Districts. Similar language is included in the pending economic development bond bill for the Mass Office of Travel and Tourism’s Destination Development Capital Grant Program.

About the Watertown Cultural District 

The City of Watertown is a growing and engaged community; it has seen growth in population and revenue over the last decade and is planning for more in its future. Its diverse population, including one of the largest Armenian diasporas, supports a variety of restaurants and retail establishments that draw visitors from surrounding communities. These attributes solidify Watertown’s identify as a place for ‘bridging cultures.’

Watertown’s Cultural District will support inclusive and diverse cultural experiences that showcase the arts and strengthen the local economy by establishing the City as a cultural destination that is welcoming and engaging, encouraging public interaction, stimulating the creative economy, and preserving and amplifying Watertown’s diverse history.

“I am thrilled that Watertown now has a state-designated Cultural District,” said George Proakis, Watertown City Manager. “Our diverse arts and culture ecosystem will not only continue to strengthen with this designation, but we will further experience the many benefits of an inclusionary, innovative, and creative community.”

Watertown Square, at the intersection of Main St., Pleasant St., Galen St., Charles River Rd., North Beacon St., and Mount Auburn St., is the civic center and transportation hub of the City, and a growing cultural center. Its proximity to the Charles River, at the most inland navigable point by water from Boston Harbor, is a cherished feature of Watertown. 

The Cultural District is home to many annual public events, boasting a long and growing list of arts and cultural assets including a premiere regional arts center, the Mosesian Center for the Arts, as well as world class institutions like Mount Auburn Cemetery, Perkins School for the Blind, and the Armenian Museum of America. 

Programming at Saltonstall Park makes it a unique hub of entertainment and community connection in the City, as does the multitude of programs at the nearby Watertown Free Public Library, widely considered a gem in the crown of the state’s Minuteman Library Network. The district also includes two independent privately-owned art galleries, several creative businesses, and a multitude of restaurants serving menus from a wide array of cultural backgrounds.

Watertown has a history of amplifying culture and creativity, and this new Cultural District is the next step in this process. In the 2010s, the arts found a champion within the Watertown Public Arts and Culture Committee, producing several public murals and moving the city to create and adopt a Public Arts Master Plan (2021). There has also long been a desire to make Watertown Square more navigable and welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists while also accommodating daily vehicle traffic, and to encourage visitors to linger and patronize local businesses. 

The Watertown Cultural District is poised to realize these goals by emphasizing the assets and programs that already exist and incentivizing initiatives that bolster the creative economy.

“The new Watertown Cultural District will be a crucial building block for the energizing and reimagining of Watertown Square as a gathering place for our community,” said Doug Orifice, Vice Chair of the Watertown Cultural District and President/Co-Founder of the Watertown Business Coalition. “We are grateful to Mass Cultural Council as they continue to be a tremendous partner to our City.”

“I am thrilled that Mass Cultural Council has designated a new Cultural District in Watertown,” said State Representative Steve Owens (D- Watertown). “Thanks to Mass Cultural Council for recognizing the Watertown Cultural Council’s hard work in cultivating robust creative and cultural programming to make this happen. I look forward to seeing Watertown Square become a thriving cultural district as a result of this designation.”

https://massculturalcouncil.org/blog/new-cultural-districts-designated-in-holyoke-watertown-westfield/

Artscope Review: Watertown’s Armenian Museum Widens Our View with Tigran Tsitoghdzyan’s Filtered Identity

By J.M. Belmont, Artscope Nov/Dec 2024

Can you believe what you see, especially when it comes to yourself? In a digital world saturated with artificially generated imagery and where the polished unreality of social media is paramount, life becomes an interminable sequence of double takes. Our perspectives of ourselves are as manicured as our presentations to others, leading to a confusion of identity as the public overruns the private.

The Armenian Museum of America addresses this contradictory reality with “Filtered Identity: The Art of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan.” Though Tsitoghdzyan’s works aren’t digital creations, one could be forgiven for thinking so. What at first appears to be a show of large-scale photographs is in actuality a collection of hyper-realistic paintings.

In his 13-piece exhibition, Tsitoghdzyan asks us “to confront the tension between who we are and how we are seen.” Divided into two sections, “Mirror” and “Self-Isolation,” “Filtered Identity” surveys the past five years of his painting career: the former focusing on “the duality of self-presentation;” the latter a reaction to the early Covid-19 lockdowns.

Each painting takes on a different woman as its subject. These oversized works hang in the museum’s third floor gallery, the large space giving room for each human-size canvas to breathe. In them, Tsitoghdzyan’s subjects show as much as they conceal, appearing both duplicitous and authentic.

Standing at 84” x 60”, the paintings in “Mirror” show seven women in profile, their hands superimposed over their faces. A vertical line formed by the outer edges of their touching hands bisect the lips and nose, both splitting each woman in two and hiding them. The translucent nature gives an evasive, haunted feeling.

The concept arrived with the selfie. “What is this about? All my friends, female especially, started posting selfies every day,” said Tsitoghdzyan. “I was very into portraiture and the self-portrait was reserved for a few great masters like Rembrandt and others.

““The strength of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan’s technique is that he allows the human to be seen. We see the subjects’ emotional and physical inner workings, along with the artist’s own craft: Photogenic perfection from a distance; layered brush strokes and psychological contradiction up-close. It’s as masterful as it is discomforting.”

— J.M. Belmont/Artscope

“The filters were so important that I was thinking that, as a contemporary artist, I should start painting all my friends and everyone I know around me the way they want to be seen by the others.”

In “Mirror I,” 2024, one of the show’s five mixed media on paper works, Tsitoghdzyan has added a maze of interlocking Cocteau-esque drawings — the silver faces, hands and spirals appear and vanish depending on the viewers vantage point.

“Mirror A,” oil on canvas, does away with the fluid linework, leaving the viewer to take in the intricacy of Tsitoghdzyan’s craft. With a rich grayscale tone, he captures his subject’s penetrating eyes and the imperfections of her skin. Within the glassy reflection of her pupils, one can see the artist at work.

Across the gallery, in the works making up “Self-Isolation,” the viewer is confronted with four nude women in both physical and psychological struggle. These canvases, each 80” x 80,” have the effect of

Mirror Metamorphosis Reimagined I, 2022, mixed media on paper, 40” x 40”

a photographic double — sometimes triple or quadruple — exposure. Each subject is seated in contorted states of frustration and boredom. The bottom fourth of the canvas, the floor, is an ink-black bar on which Tsitoghdzyan’s brilliantly rendered women pose.

“Self-Isolation 10,” 2024, shows Tsitoghdzyan’s attention to detail in its extreme, with him perfectly reproducing the small talismanic tattoos on the subject’s fingers and wrists multiple times and in varying positions.

One of the most exciting pieces in the exhibition is “Self-Isolation 6,” 2024. Posed side view, the woman’s overlapping legs create a Cubists effect, while her glossy painted fingernails are offset by the photorealistic texture of her cracked heels. The viewer can easily feel the “tension between personal space and societal expectations” Tsitoghdzyan set out to replicate in the lingering days of the pandemic.

Hung midway, opposing each other across the gallery, are two works that bridge the series together.

“Mirror Metamorphosis Reimagined I,” (and “II”), 2022, mixed media on paper, are both 40” x 40,” but their relatively smaller scale doesn’t stop them from being the exhibition’s most successful pieces. Both focus on their subjects from the shoulders up, employing the “exposure” style present in “Self-Isolation.” Added are “Mirror’s” silver inked sketches, creating an effect akin to sliding a Snapchat filter over an identity crisis.

The strength of Tsitoghdzyan’s technique is that he allows the human to be seen. We see the subjects’ emotional and physical inner workings, along with the artist’s own craft: Photogenic perfection from a distance; layered brush strokes and psychological contradiction up-close. It’s as masterful as it is discomforting.

“Filtered Identity: The Art of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan” will be on view at the Armenian Museum of America through February 23, 2025. When visiting, take the time to view the museum’s thorough chronicle of the Armenian Genocide and its celebratory collection of Armenian art and culture.

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