Page 49 - Studio International - April 1965

In using these bits of Americana. Boghosian brings like Orpheus' song. They also relate to a piece, The
his myth close. Despite his origin—he is the son of an Juggler, where I characterise Orpheus as entertainer'.
Armenian immigrant—Boghosian has a strong New In The Juggler Boghosian uses a beautifully aged
England background. barn door, surmounted with one half of an ancient
He was born in New Britain, Connecticut, 'a place blacksmith's bellows—heat again. A silence emanates
with a strange industrial landscape'. Among his earliest from the piece, underlined by the large X shapes of the
memories is the image of his father cobbling shoes at door panels. Drama is sensed without allusions to the
home, gripping small nails in his mouth. (When Bog- subject. The formal harmonies here, as in most of Bog-
hosian came to fashion the head of dead Orpheus by hosian's pieces are delicate (his discreet use of colour,
driving hosts of small nails into a hat form, this image for instance) and satisfying in a non-literal sense.
returned forcefully.) He remembers, also pressing his Boghosian rarely fashions elements for his construc-
nose against the windows of a hardware factory, watch- tions. 'The materials I find speak enough', he says.
ing the men at the furnaces, preparing sand moulds. 'Here's the thing : the materials are one thing, the theme
The discarded mould serving as a hellish landscape in another. I can get mystery, space, scale—all the things a
one of the boxes, Orpheus's descent, he associates good poet is involved in—by using found materials'.
with this childhood experience. He remembers his Maintaining that 'myth is absolutely alive if you're
schooling, in the good New England tradition, and par- working and involved in it', Boghosian thinks the
ticularly, a minor poet who taught in his high school Orpheus myth will last him a lifetime. His interest in
and who first stirred his literary heart. sculpture is strong, however, and he has embarked on
Boghosian joined the Navy young, in 1944, returned another legendary theme, 'Knight, Death and the Devil'
to his home town with thoughts of becoming an English which he plans to elucidate as a shaping sculptor
teacher. Not long after, he changed his mind and drifted rather than with found materials. 'Myth is real to me.
to.. Boston where he studied in the Vesper George After all, my life hasn't been all that rich actually, but
school of commercial art. As his GI Bill was running out, myths have so much substance I can go on forever
Boghosian found a small market for his woodcuts and with them'.
watercolours through the Swetzoff Gallery. 'In those Boghosian likes to talk. He likes to talk about other
days', he says, 'Boston was good for a young artist'. artists who interest him, Giacometti for instance. 'There
In 1953 he married, got a Fulbright award, went to is something about Giacometti's specific image . . . I
Italy for some months and returned to Boston where he feel something fantastic where feet come down and
found it increasingly difficult to maintain himself. After become part of the ground ... You get something like
a series of busboy and dishwasher jobs, Josef Albers, it in Medardo Rosso ... a figure-field affair ... I guess I
then head of the Yale art department, admitted him to was strongly affected by Giacometti's Midnight in the
Yale for work on an advanced degree. With Albers' Palace and his chariot pieces . . . I was also moved by
liberal encouragement, Boghosian got under way as a Nadelman's last work, those plasters with lead-pencil
serious artist. marks . . . Sculpture is starting to hit the open spaces
New England, then, with its strong sense for tradition now, something is happening in sculpture ... '
and its pride of origin, was the theatre in which Bog- Projecting his 'Knight, Death and the Devil' series,
hosian's initial drama unfolded. Probably his love for begun in plaster, Boghosian says, 'I need to do things
the weathered remnants of tradition grows naturally with big energy. I'm interested in big sculptural forms'.
from these formative experiences. There is something of Stephen Dedalus in Boghosian
After he collects his association-soaked materials, who cannot resist making myriad associations and who
Boghosian meditates. The colour of wood, the patina says his life consists of 'uncontrollable imaginative
on an antique head, the pattern of scars and splinters running'. With Boghosian we can expect, as he expects,
on a door are not his only considerations. He is also a proliferation of startling visual metaphors.
n
moved by the conjectured history of his objects. For
instance, there is a stirring piece, The Poet in Hell which
consists of an ancient timber, perhaps from a ship, per-
haps from a dock, with a small rectangular opening.
This horizontal piece of lumber, worked to a silver
sheen by the elements, serves Boghosian as a stage for
the dramatic apparition of a fine-featured head sus-
pended in the aperture. Of this piece he says : 'I always
try to find material that relates to the myth. This board
from a ship suggests water—when Orpheus is between
two worlds. I found it on the beach in Provincetown
[a pilgrim landing point on the tip of Cape Cod]. The
head is very literal. It is from a saint figure and relates
to Orpheus as a prototype of a Christian myth'.
As another instance of the way Boghosian's mind
proliferates associations: There is a large wall hanging,
The Fountain. It consists of a lively-patterned drawing
table on which an old ironing board is mounted. On the
board is a hat form, studded with nails. Below, a small
head, and cascading below, a throng of croquet balls.
'Here you have Orpheus' head still singing as it floats
down the river', Boghosian explains. 'The ironing board
Study for the Temple 1964 was the right shape, but I also chose it because it
14 x 111 x 4i in.
Stable Gallery suggests heat—heat of hell. The balls are bubbling out