G. H. Hovagimyan
Encyclopedia
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was born 1950 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In 1972, He received a B.F.A.
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
from the University of the Arts
University of the Arts (Philadelphia)
The University of the Arts is one of the United States' oldest universities dedicated to the arts. Its campus makes up part of the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia...
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
and received an M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
in 2005. He is a professor at the School of Visual Arts in the MFA Computer Arts Department. He was one of the first artists in New York to start working in Internet Art
Internet art
Internet art is a form of digital artwork distributed via the Internet. This form of art has circumvented the traditional dominance of the gallery and museum system, delivering aesthetic experiences via the Internet. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work...
in 1993 with such artists' online groups as the thing, ArtNetWeb, and Rhizome.
He has collaborated with English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
/French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sound art
Sound art
Sound art is a diverse group of art practices that considers wide notions of sound, listening and hearing as its predominant focus. There are often distinct relationships forged between the visual and aural domains of art and perception by sound artists....
ist Peter Sinclair
Peter Sinclair (sound artist)
Peter Sinclair is an English-born sound artist who lives and works in Marseille, France. Sinclair is a professor of sound art at the École Supérieure d'Art d'Aix-en-Provence....
on a number of works and was an active member of the artist's group Colab
Colab
Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. Colab came together as a collective in 1977, and initially received an NEA Workshop Grant through Center for...
.
112 Workshop
From 1973 to 1986 he was involved in the SoHoSoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
and Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
underground art scene. His first solo exhibition, a rigorously conceptual art show at 112 Workshop in 1973, was titled Control Designators.
- "...Hovagimyan made use of three types of designators to direct the viewers experience of the space at 112: 100 number codes indicating the surface topologies of the space, three visual sighting devices functioning like a gun-sight to locate 100 points in the space, and 100 language signs giving directions for the ways to think about the space and move around within the space. The system was based on Jean PiagetJean PiagetJean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
's theory of child development as opposed to adult intellectual development. Thus, the basic matrix of the artist's code was related to the progression from undifferentiated surface topology through geometric triangulation to the linear sense of language experienced in reading."
He was a friend of the artist Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He is famous for his "building cuts," a series of works in abandoned buildings in which he variously removed sections of floors, ceilings, and walls.-Life and work:Both of Gordon Matta-Clark's...
, who was also involved in 112 Workshop. He worked with Matta-Clark on several projects, namely: Days' End, Conical Intersect, Walking Man's Arch, and Underground Explorations. In 1974 during the video-performance series at 112 Greene Street, he performed opposite Spaulding Gray in Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
's video A Prisoner's Dilemma.
East Village and Punk
Much of Hovagimyan's early work was ephemeral in nature. It involved performance art, written and language works, and temporary installations in galleries.A word piece, Tactics for Survival in the New Culture, was exhibited in "The Manifesto Show" (1979) organized by the artist collective
Artist collective
An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims...
Colab
Colab
Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. Colab came together as a collective in 1977, and initially received an NEA Workshop Grant through Center for...
. This particular piece was to become the basis for one of his first online hypertext works in 1993. He showed in several group exhibitions organized by Jean Dupuy, a French Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
artist living in New York at 405 E. 13th Street. In 1980 Hovagimyan did a series of punk
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
performance pieces for Artist's Space series called Open Mic. One piece, Rich Sucker Rap was recorded by Davidson Gigliotti for a video tape called Chant a Capella which Electronic Arts Intermix carries in its catalog. He also performed in several No Wave Cinema
No Wave Cinema
No Wave Cinema was a Colab sponsored boom in underground filmmaking on the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Its name, much like its cousin No Wave music, was a stripped down style of guerrilla/punk filmmaking that emphasized mood and texture above everything else.This brief movement,...
films among them, The Offenders (1980) by Scott B & Beth B and The Deadly Art of Survival by Charles Ahearn.
Media and New Media
In the early 1990s Hovagimyan started working in Media Art and New Media ArtNew media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
. Some of the pieces involve using a combination of photographs and text, often mimicking advertising. In May, 1994 his twenty billboard project for Creative Time, Hey Bozo... Use Mass Transit that received quite a bit of press. The work was seen on several newscasts such as Good Day New York
Good Day New York
Good Day New York is a weekday morning news and entertainment feature show which airs on WNYW, the New York City flagship television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company...
and the NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
(nationally). It was written up in the NY Post, NY Daily News, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, etc. A telephone interview with the artist and a report on the project was distributed over the AP newswire.
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
and Art Press He also hosted an internet radio/TV talk show called Art Dirt. The first of its kind, Art Dirt, is part of the Walker Art Center's Digital Studies Archives collection. Of his collaborative works with Peter Sinclair
Peter Sinclair
Peter Sinclair may refer to:*Peter Ross Sinclair , Governor of New South Wales*Peter Sinclair , New Zealand television personality...
, the most well known are a Soapopera for Laptops/ iMacs, Shooter and Rant/ Rant Back/ Back Rant. Shooter, an immersive sound and laser installation was developed at Eyebeam Atelier
Eyebeam Atelier
Eyebeam, is a not-for-profit arts and technology center in New York City. Their stated purpose is to promote the creative use of new technologies by funding artwork, education and exhibitions. The founders were John S. Johnson III, David S. Johnson and Roderic R...
as part of its Artist in Residence program.