Meri Karapetyan

Jair Lanes

Venue

IAC - Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes

Metropolitan area

Born in 1998 in Chelyabinsk, Russia
Lives and works in Paris, France

Armenian-born Meri Karapetyan grew up in Yerevan, where between 2020 and 2022 she was profoundly affected by the conflicts in Artsakh. This has led the artist to deconstruct the notion of borders, using art as the way to “disarm” that notion and reveal what she sees as its main function: that of defining the undefinable. Her work uses a variety of materials such as rope, clay, copper, plaster and tar to give shape to an emotional and expressive approach.

Untitled is a large-scale sculpture that has the aspect of barbed wire. It is the result of three years’ research into the representation of borders, and embodies a concrete idea: that these arbitrary geographical boundaries, which we all too often take for granted, are actually no more than abstract, shifting, unstable notions. Untitled invites visitors to experiment with a new approach to the border, reimagining it not as a physical barrier but as an opportunity to cross over. Meri Karapetyan’s work has appropriated a highly symbolic piece of military imagery and turned it into a threshold — an invitation to cross over and explore.