The Cafesjian Center for the Arts, perched atop Yerevan’s iconic Cascade, has recently become the site of a significant artistic homecoming. On May 5, 2025, the Center unveiled RETURN, a major solo exhibition by Armenian-American sculptor Zadik Zadikian, marking the artist’s first major show in his homeland in nearly six decades. The exhibition is anchored by “The Foreigners,” a monumental installation that commands both attention and reflection.
Zadikian was born in Soviet Armenia in 1948 as the child of genocide survivors. From an early age, he was drawn to art, studying at Yerevan’s Panos Terlemezian State College of Fine Arts and later at the city’s Art Academy. But the promise of creative freedom was quickly overshadowed by the oppressive reality of the Soviet regime. “Every step, every word, could be used against you. It was a world where you learned to hide your thoughts, your ambitions—even your dreams,” Zadikyan reflected.
Together with four friends, Zadikian spent six months preparing to flee. Their plan was as audacious as it was desperate: to swim across the Arax River, leaving behind family, homeland and everything familiar for a chance at freedom. “To leave was to lose everything,” he recalls. “But it opened up room for everything else.” This act of defiance would become a defining moment, shaping not only his life but the trajectory of his art.
After reaching the United States, Zadikian settled in San Francisco, where he apprenticed with the renowned sculptor Beniamino Bufano. Bufano’s influence is evident in Zadikian’s early works, which blend monumentality with a deep sense of public engagement. But it was in New York—and later, in his Brooklyn studio—that Zadikian truly forged his own path. There, he developed a fascination with gold—not just as a precious metal, but as a symbol of endurance, purity and cosmic witnessing.
“My work is about filling a void,” Zadikian has said. “It’s always been about reconnection to a lost world—a world we threw away too quickly, only to realize there was gold dust inside that camouflaged itself as mud.” This philosophy found its most striking expression in “Path to Nine,” an installation featured in the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th anniversary “Solid Gold” exhibition.
A monumental return: “The Foreigners” in Yerevan
Yet it is “The Foreigners,” now on view at the Cafesjian Center, that feels like the culmination of Zadikian’s lifelong exploration of exile and transformation. The installation consists of thousands of faceless clay figures, each gilded with 24-karat gold leaf. The figures are mostly female—anonymous yet intimate. “These are not real foreigners,” Zadikian told the Weekly, “but those emerging from my subconscious, even foreigners to myself. Sculpting is like baking bread; they seem to be born naturally.”
Sculpting is like baking bread; they seem to be born naturally.
The installation’s presentation in Yerevan is notably different from its earlier iterations in Los Angeles and New York. Here, the figures radiate from a central core, echoing the concept of the “Big Bang”—a new creation story for a nation in flux. Zadikian has dedicated this work to the memory of Armenian soldiers in recent wars, imbuing the installation with both personal and collective resonance. “When I began this project nine years ago, there was no war, no loss of Artsakh,” he said.
The Cafesjian Center for the Arts is a fitting venue for this homecoming. Conceived in the 1920s and realized decades later with the support of Armenian-American philanthropist Gerard Cafesjian, the Center is one of Yerevan’s premier cultural institutions. It houses a collection that spans contemporary sculpture, design and monumental art. Its galleries, garden spaces and concert programs draw more than a million visitors each year, making it a vital hub for cultural life in Armenia.
At the exhibition’s opening, the Center’s Executive Director Vahagn Maradian addressed the significance of Zadikian’s return:
“For the museum, through this exhibition, the artist presents the portrait of foreigners in his own perception with a metamorphic expression, which seems like light emerging in darkness. And that light, manifested in its various forms, is proclaimed—we need that light and illumination.”
Identity, danger and the role of art
Zadikian’s relationship to Armenian identity has been central to his work. Born to a genocide survivor and named after his grandfather, he has always felt the pull of his roots. “I am Armenian; my soul is Armenian. I have lived almost my entire life abroad, but my identity has always called me,” he said. And this calling led him to reject advice to change his name. “It is by being Armenian that we have survived for thousands of years. Our identity is our shield.”
Still, Zadikian is clear-eyed about the challenges facing Armenia today. “Certain forces divide the nation from within, poisoning our core,” he warned. He called on artists to unite, to use art as both weapon and balm. “Every Armenian is very clever individually; however, together we cannot work. Armenians are a peaceful and creative people, and it is through art that we must also withstand the impending danger.”
For artists forcibly displaced from Artsakh and facing great hardship, Zadikian offered a hard-won consolation, recalling the words of his late teacher, Ara Harutyunyan: “An artist is like an apple tree. Even if you do not eat the apple, it will bear fruit.”
“The Foreigners” is not just a return but a challenge: to see, to remember and to begin again. In a city where history is never far from the surface, Zadikian’s work stands as both an elegy and invocation—a glimmer of light in the darkness and a reminder that the path to home is never truly finished.
Siranush Sargsyan
This is a great article about a great exhibition. How long is the exhibition going to be on display at Cafesjian?