Whimsical and playful, surreal and profound, “Fragments of Memory” at the Armenian Museum of America in Watertown firmly places Armenian American artist Varujan Boghosian in the company of influential assemblage artists like Joseph Cornell, Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. Art lovers who appreciate oddities, hidden stories in nooks and crannies, and finding something new every time they take a second look, will delight in digging deep into the incredible portfolio of Boghosian.
Raised in Connecticut by working class parents, young Boghosian was inspired by his teacher, and poet, Constance Carrier, who led him to a love of stories. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he attended art school in Boston, Italy and under the tutelage of Josef Albers at Yale. Throughout his career, his works have been exhibited in museums across the country and in public collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New York Public Library and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A beloved member of the Provincetown artistic community, his work was often on view in friend Berta Walker’s gallery. Boghosian was earnestly, and devotedly, an educator for much of his life, his longest tenure at Dartmouth College, from 1968 to 1996.
As the son of Armenian immigrants who left their home to escape a genocide, it is not a surprise that Boghosian found preciousness in lost or discarded things. His constructions are clearly so lovingly created, adding an additional layer of profundity to his enigmatic work. He called himself a “junk collector” but really, he was a junk connoisseur, seeking out objects that held meaning for him, tied to the themes he wanted to explore. He often collected multiples of the same thing — including butterflies, children’s blocks, letters, human figures and maps.