Armenian citizens can no longer elect a president directly. That is to say, take steps to vote for a specific person.

But at the same time, if they want to, they can choose every day.

A similar voting game suggested by The Presidential Deluxe exhibition, which was opened before the start of the Take A Step mass movement.

To be the president means to occupy a privileged position, to be in a place which is labeled as deluxe, and most importantly, to validate your own power by saying, “I am President.”

Artist, Samvel Saghatelian, having created the The Presidential Deluxe multimedia art project, decided to double the “I am President” claim and even triple it.

Eventually, when throughout the day you say “I am President, I am President” a few times, you subconsciously find yourself in a situation which resembles a children’s tongue twister game.

The exhibits were comprised of half masks of all three Republic of Armenia presidents (one of them is also a Prime Minister today).

The masks have handles, which implies that they can be used both as masks and as protest posters.

For example, carry high as it is accepted to do at demonstrations, or hold to the face so that you can half become a historical figure.

Samvel Saghatelian approached the attractiveness of power with extreme clarity. There are no aesthetic traps, sophisticated meaningful structures, efforts to guess what the hidden meaning is.

You want to become the president? Then do it.

This direct offer emphasizes the pyramids of potatoes which are stacked and spread everywhere (the exclusive deluxe next to and against mass vegetables).

Three artists also share the same spotlight with the same half-faced masks, which are very happy with their game. They are playing the role of three monkeys who do not want to see, hear or talk. They only dance.

It’s interesting that the author calmly creates exhibits not with abstract, but rather with three actual figures of the presidents of the Republic of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan.

The fourth, whose powers have only just begun, is not accounted for, because the rules of the game have changed (we are parliamentary and non-presidential, that is to say semi-deluxe).

Simplification as provocation

Contemporary art always have political connections, usually hidden and beautifully encrypted.

Samvel Saghatelian did the opposite. He doesn’t think it at all necessary to hide the political theme between the lines and use figurative language. He opens political attributes and characters, simplifies, lowers the pedestal of immunity and turns usable objects, leaflets, toys, which can be found on the floor, under feet.

They can become damaged the same way handwritten posters can, be ripped like masks, rot like potatoes.

Absolutely simplifying is important when manipulative multi-tactic exercises are continuously used in the environment, and the irony of  fundamental freedoms.

For example, the delight of choice (it will be the same, whoever you choose), the decision to choose (look at what opposition you have, is it worth giving your vote to them?), independence (it doesn’t matter, we cannot be independent).  

Irony is the weapon of authoritarian systems, which puts into suspicion the ability of a person to make important decisions, making their decision-making a secondary, meaningless occupation.

Samvel Saghatelian tries to use irony to achieve the opposite results: not to spoil the message, but by using irony to justify it again.

And though this exhibition tries to talk about a few important things simultaneously, the most successful one is the attempt to oppose irony, by neutralizing the ironic background.

So to speak, to reach point zero, when the president is only a mask, and if you wear that mask, then you yourself are the president.

“If you become identical to the authorities, you become less vulnerable. Just like a Japanese archer, whose arrows are shot only at that moment when they see the target point in themselves. I want that people in trying the masks not differentiate themselves from these presidents,” says Samvel Saghatelian.

In reality, now Armenia is in such a moment where, in order to work peacefully internally you need to make an effort and, as much as possible, stay away from various government associations (especially if you work in the media or in the artistic sphere). To put it shortly, to isolate yourself and live clean.

And admirer of oriental martial arts philosophy, Samvel Saghatelian, is convinced that the isolation is temporary, since man is only able to deal with the opponent when he identifies himself with his surroundings (regardless of bad, good, breathing, inanimate) and sees its reflection in himself.  

It helps not to rely on someone else, that someone else will not shape and solve your problems and do the things you need to do or psychologically support you.

During the last 11 days, the flowing and developing Take A Step, Reject Serzh movement in Armenia confirmed this idea in a massive way.

After all, the basis of all questions is the freedom of man.

It is interesting to see with what logic visitors choose their masks and even more so get photographed wearing the masks, becoming immortalized as half “I” hand half “one of them.” Perhaps many choose the contrary, the worst and most hated one.

Samvel Saghatelian hopes that this interactive masquerade will eventually become another project, but for now he claims that everything is explained not by hatred but with love.

“Let it be absurd that the authorities need love, and all the demonism, even hatred towards the people, the desire to pressure and get rich at the expense of others is born out of a lack of love.”

It’s difficult to love that pyramid of power, which has been created in Armenia and it is meaningless to curse at it. Pyramids are decomposed only by network models, even with the spread of half-masked selfies.

The feminine as a savior

The pyramid of power, whose construction was finally confirmed in Armenia, has a distinctly masculine (phallic) structure.

“The pyramid is generally a male structure, and if a woman even appears there, she nevertheless will think like a pyramid,” assures Samvel Saghatelyan, for whom the concept of femininity smoothly becomes the counterbalance to the pyramid of power.  

His new project, Overthrowing the Power Pyramid, will be based on the idea that in everyone’s inner world there is a feminine perception, and it just needs to be accepted. Not to fight against it and eliminate it in every way, rather to bear and live in harmony with it.

“The basis of the nature of man is control, in woman is sharing. The woman receives information, she develops it and tends to return it, while men are afraid to lose information (roughly speaking, power). And that fear forces us to control power, make it a weapon for containment, a means for blackmail. Men are so afraid of their inner femininity and do not allow for its expression, that they become monsters. And fairly scary monsters,” he said.

At the same time the basis of receiving and returning, pretending and being, acting and responding is hence the network, where the roots grow not only vertically but also horizontally. And unlike pyramids, building networks is happier and more gratifying work.

Including the alternatives of the list of  presidents, the half-masks and half-faces.

Nune Hakhverdyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.