«EMERGENCE» by Armen AGOP (Cairo 1969 - ...)

  LKFF Art & Sculpture Projects is proud to present, for the 3rd time in Brussels, the Egyptian artist Armen Agop. In this new exhibition, titled “Emergence”, Agop shares with us his obsession with lines.  A line is a very elemental entity. Armen Agop explores various situations where one emerges from different compact forms, seeking the outside world. Sharp lines appear, cutting through the space. Less sharp lines are vague apparitions initiating outer contact. Although these forms are quite compact and contained the emerging lines have an optimistic presence, suggesting growth and expansion. It leaves us with a spatial interrogation. We witness a process of materialization of the space surrounding the sculptures.  These lines have a unique essentiality, they are not a fragment of the sculpture. They are a fundamental part of a totality, we don’t know which one is the result of the other. Does the line emerge from the form, or is it the form emerging the line? Armen Agop describes his obsessive process as a meditative practice, a rituality which seeks an interior cosmos and explores a spacial depth. Observing and re-observing a line, sculpting it and re-sculpting it, each time discovering a new way of being and a different dimension of existence. His sculptures can be perplexing, often appearing as futuristic beings or UFOs, and at the same time, remind one of the soberness of ancient Egyptian art in its powerful lines and simple forms.  About the artist:  Armen Agop was born in 1969 to Armenian parents in Cairo, Egypt. There, he was confronted daily with the dualities of the two ancient cultures. The dialog between the these heritages created in him a continuous reevaluation of values, a unique perspective between east and west, between old and new.  Agop graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Helwan University in Cairo, where he was also awarded an assistant research scholarship. He began to exhibit his work in many diverse shows throughout Egypt and received the Sculpture Prize from the Autumn Salon in 1998. His national recognition was con rmed in 2000 when he received the State Prize of Artistic Creativity, “The Rome Prize.” After staying in Rome the  rst year, he moved to Pietrasanta, Italy where he lives and works today.  In 2010 he won the Umberto Mastroianni award and in 2013 he was awarded the Sulmona prize, the Presidential Medal of the Italian Republic.