Bobo
“Bobo is the anti man, the fear, the unknown person inside us, he is misunderstood. It’s the nervousness inside man; there is no explanation for his existence. He is dear, you can touch him, but he is unknown, it’s something bothering the person. Bobo is the thing, which encourages man, gives him energy, leaves room for doubt. If we turn that preoccupation into something rude, lower it to the level of instincts and move it to nature, then the bobo is a physical aggression. That causes sadist behavior, including rape and schizophrenia. But if it’s clean and in a metaphysic state, the bobo is the divine tranquility of the human soul. Just like the universe, the man that breathes, it’s that respiration and it’s unclear-is it better to inhale or exhale, to be positive or negative. Bobo is the two combined.
Recently, I noticed something interesting. Up until now, Armenian painters didn’t really express speed, movement. There was no such thing; it was more passive, there were beautiful, harmonious paintings, it was about making figures. It was all made up. My paintings made people look at me as the first abstract expressionist because I used to paint rapidly on large canvases. I was the first who started to paint rapidly and now Vahan Rumelyan paints like that too. What I’m trying to say is that painting at a rapid pace shouldn’t allow the painter to make up something or plan it out. I put the speed in that incomprehensive respiration. Painting fades away from the traditional style and paves a new road.”
Self-improvement
“I have no positive traits; I am negative. I always try to escape from the good things because the evil in the world comes from the good things one sees and not the bad things. Humans and all thinkers have realized that. Man creates his ego, expresses his desires, pictures things and creates good things by imagination, which doesn’t really correspond to the positive or the negative. All thinkers of the world say that evil is created with good intentions, in other words, one of man’s characteristics is to turn everything upside down and lie just to satisfy himself. The person who doubts everything, who really wants to understand is confessing to himself that there is no good thing at all. He sees the good in things that others look at as evil. He sees the thing that is hidden amongst everything else. That doesn’t correspond to man’s way of looking at the positive. The hidden good things sometimes seem negative, crazy, poor, helpless, rejected and weak and that’s where the hidden man is; the positive and not the ideas, promises not kept, so-called belief, freedom and all the other “so-called”…These issues are more radical in art. Man starts to think the moment he doesn’t consider himself good. He doesn’t understand these issues. I’m not a positive person; I haven’t helped anyone.”
Man
“If man doesn’t think, then he becomes a zombie. Man wants to be saved and be happy. Why doesn’t he save himself? It’s because of the lie that is all around him. Man dreams of being saved-he wants absolute things because he gets disappointed in incompleteness. That’s why he creates absolute values in order to be saved. As long as civilization hasn’t faded away, man keeps going deeper into the swamp, feels safe, imagines, uses others, abuses, takes everything from others and doesn’t give. Man’s goal is to give less and take more. The strong people of the world, the rulers think-what can we do to live better in crucial times like these, have more, in other words, it’s all about cleverness. When we start to compress nature, we get calamity. Why are they talking about ecology that much and giving warnings? Scientists warn us that we have to show respect towards nature. We can’t use natural resources forever…the same thing goes for humans. Man can’t always make the other work and make use of him…when you go over the limit, that’s when you see a disaster. That’s the reason for wars. We want to be saved; we don’t want a disaster to happen. The world is not a closed cage and that’s why the meaning of life is to always save oneself. Man always waits for somebody to help him save himself; perhaps he’s waiting for the savior. The savior can appear differently. The horrible thing is when the monster comes as an angel. That’s why I say that this is the bad thing about being positive. If Satan comes looking like Satan, everyone will start laughing and say ‘why should we follow you, who are you?’ But if Satan comes looking like an angel, he will take everyone with him and it’s not easy to try to look like an angel. Humans always follow the leader. After you study the life and character of the leaders, you find out that they are nothing but thieves. History has proven that. But that’s not important; the important thing is to know what I’m doing. If I take a look at what others are doing, then perhaps I will steal and others will say ‘you haven’t done anything bad; everyone steals’. For me, the power of living is to be unnoticed.”
Not much purity
“Television gives me the opportunity to see what new deformation or cleverness man has thought up of. There is not much purity; they aren’t talking about the real problems or they simply say ‘he is to blame, she is to blame’…I go along with the following principle: ‘I am to blame, not the world’.”