Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

curators: Taras Gembik, Joanna Kordjak
producer: Michał Kubiak
visual identification: Kaja Kusztra
exhibition design: Aneta Faner

Sergei (Sergo, Serhij) Parajanov (born Sarkis Parajanian) is one of the most illustrious film directors of the 20th century, whose unique imagination and original visual language have inspired filmmakers worldwide for decades.

At the heart of the exhibition dedicated to Parajanov’s work is a selection of scenes from a version of The Color of Pomegranates (original title: Sayat-Nova) — his most important film, completed in 1969 and reconstructed almost half a century later. Known for many years only in a censored, shortened and re-edited version, it is considered a masterpiece of world cinema. The exhibition title, I Want to Outrun My Shadow, was borrowed from a poem by a 18th-century Armenian poet, whose life and work became the main theme of Parajanov’s film. The show also features its fragments cut from the final version, alongside the director’s other films (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, The Legend of Suram Fortress and Ashik Kerib), as well as his drawings, collages and assemblages. Such a constellation of works reflects the specificity of his artistic practice: its interdisciplinarity and the fluid interpenetration of media and genres.

A key focus of the exhibition is Parajanov’s remarkable life story. This Armenian-Georgian-Ukrainian artist, born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) as an Armenian, spent most of his life working within the Soviet Union, moving between Sakartvelo (Georgia), Ukraine, and Armenia. He faced challenges from the political regime, which restricted his freedom through censorship, repression, and even imprisonment. The works he created during his several years in a labour camp are a particularly poignant testament to these struggles. They reveal the oppressive nature of a regime that intruded into every aspect of life, even the most private, but also the artist’s incredible sensitivity and appreciation for human beauty and sexuality, which he continued to express even in the most difficult circumstances.

As a filmmaker, he worked within the constraints of a rigid film industry, entirely reliant on state funding. Yet, he managed to develop a distinctive aesthetic in his films, one that transcended genre or style categories and challenged the strict conventions of Socialist Realism, particularly prevalent in the Soviet Union. This unique aesthetic was shaped by his personal interpretation of local religious rituals, a fusion of mysticism with sensual materiality, physicality, eroticism, and a queer sensibility, as we would call it today. Furthermore, his surrealist imagination was influenced by fairy tales, local myths, childhood memories, and dreams.

The exhibition situates Parajanov’s work within the political and artistic context of his time. It is accompanied by works of two other prominent artists active during the Soviet regime in Armenia and Georgia: video artist Hamlet Hovsepian and painter Karlo Kacharava.

Parajanov’s life, marked by complexities such as his bisexuality and unobvious ethnic, national, and state affiliation, serves as a starting point for exploring the concept of identity: what defines it and what constitutes it: our bodies, gender, nationality, religion? Contemporary artists from Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia, featured in the exhibition and its accompanying program, also grapple with these questions in their work: David Apakidze, Jan Bačynsjkyj/Yana Bachynska, Uta Bekaia, Rosana Palazyan, and Roza Sarkisian. They share with Parajanov the experience of a complex national, sexual, gender, and corporeal identity.

The show offers a unique chance to discover Parajanov’s work anew through the lens of contemporary artistic and political discourses.

The exhibition is held under the honorary patronage of His Excellency Alexander Arzoumanian, Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to Poland.

As part of the show, the Zachęta, in collaboration with Untitled Tbilisi and the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, is organising a month-long residency for David Apakidze in Warsaw.