Claudio Gobbi: Arménie Ville: A Visual Essay on Armenian Architecture

Since 2007, Claudio Gobbi (born 1971) has been systematically documenting Armenian religious architecture from the Middle Ages to the present. Besides the photographer’s own photographs, the series, titled Arménie Ville, also comprises found images from archives, pictures from the Internet and from commissioned artists. Spanning more than 25 countries from Western Europe to the Caucasus, the Berlin-based Italian photographer traces the specific features of sacral Armenian architecture and the captivating simplicity of its forms, which have remained unchanged for more than 1,500 years. Investigating the concepts of authorship, serialization and representation, Gobbi carries on his quest for key images of Armenian cultures and in the process addresses themes of time, memory, migration and the cultural legacy of a people.