New Cultural Districts Designated in Watertown, Holyoke and Westfield

By Christian Kelly

Mass Cultural Council has approved three new state-designated cultural districts in the communities of Holyoke, Watertown, and Westfield.

“This is a celebration of these three communities, their distinct local character, and their cultural vibrancy,” said Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director, Mass Cultural Council. “While Holyoke, Watertown, and Westfield are unique from one another and their peers in the Cultural Districts Initiative, what they share is a commitment to economic development through creative placemaking, celebrating – and prioritizing – arts and culture and using it as a tool to grow and support their local economies.”

As the Commonwealth’s independent state arts agency, Mass Cultural Council is charged with bolstering the creative and cultural sector, thereby advancing economic vitality, supporting transformational change, and celebrating, preserving, and inspiring creativity across all Massachusetts communities.

With the addition of Holyoke, Watertown, and Westfield, the Cultural District Initiative now encompasses 58 districts in communities statewide. The Agency’s Fiscal Year 2025 spending plan calls for a $15,000 investment into each of these state-designated Cultural Districts to encourage their ongoing development, programming, and success.

About the Massachusetts Cultural Districts Initiative

Established in 2011 by an act of the state Legislature, the Cultural Districts Initiative drives economic growth, strengthens the distinctive local character of communities, and improves the quality of life for families across Massachusetts. By supporting cultural and creative experiences, each of the Commonwealth’s 58 state-designated Cultural Districts attract tourists and entrepreneurs, which helps cities and towns develop their cultural sector and expand their tax base. Cultural Districts are located in communities of all sizes in every region of Massachusetts and are easy to navigate areas with a density of cultural facilities, activities, and assets. They act as hubs of cultural, artistic, and economic activity, and offer a place-based identity to collaborative community initiatives.

State law stipulates that state-designated Cultural Districts are eligible to benefit from programs, services, and economic development tools offered by state agencies, constitutional offices, and quasi-governmental agencies. This year the Healey-Driscoll Administration advanced this notion by adopting policies prioritizing grant applications submitted to the Community One Stop for Growth portal with projects located within Cultural Districts. Similar language is included in the pending economic development bond bill for the Mass Office of Travel and Tourism’s Destination Development Capital Grant Program.

About the Watertown Cultural District 

The City of Watertown is a growing and engaged community; it has seen growth in population and revenue over the last decade and is planning for more in its future. Its diverse population, including one of the largest Armenian diasporas, supports a variety of restaurants and retail establishments that draw visitors from surrounding communities. These attributes solidify Watertown’s identify as a place for ‘bridging cultures.’

Watertown’s Cultural District will support inclusive and diverse cultural experiences that showcase the arts and strengthen the local economy by establishing the City as a cultural destination that is welcoming and engaging, encouraging public interaction, stimulating the creative economy, and preserving and amplifying Watertown’s diverse history.

“I am thrilled that Watertown now has a state-designated Cultural District,” said George Proakis, Watertown City Manager. “Our diverse arts and culture ecosystem will not only continue to strengthen with this designation, but we will further experience the many benefits of an inclusionary, innovative, and creative community.”

Watertown Square, at the intersection of Main St., Pleasant St., Galen St., Charles River Rd., North Beacon St., and Mount Auburn St., is the civic center and transportation hub of the City, and a growing cultural center. Its proximity to the Charles River, at the most inland navigable point by water from Boston Harbor, is a cherished feature of Watertown. 

The Cultural District is home to many annual public events, boasting a long and growing list of arts and cultural assets including a premiere regional arts center, the Mosesian Center for the Arts, as well as world class institutions like Mount Auburn Cemetery, Perkins School for the Blind, and the Armenian Museum of America. 

Programming at Saltonstall Park makes it a unique hub of entertainment and community connection in the City, as does the multitude of programs at the nearby Watertown Free Public Library, widely considered a gem in the crown of the state’s Minuteman Library Network. The district also includes two independent privately-owned art galleries, several creative businesses, and a multitude of restaurants serving menus from a wide array of cultural backgrounds.

Watertown has a history of amplifying culture and creativity, and this new Cultural District is the next step in this process. In the 2010s, the arts found a champion within the Watertown Public Arts and Culture Committee, producing several public murals and moving the city to create and adopt a Public Arts Master Plan (2021). There has also long been a desire to make Watertown Square more navigable and welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists while also accommodating daily vehicle traffic, and to encourage visitors to linger and patronize local businesses. 

The Watertown Cultural District is poised to realize these goals by emphasizing the assets and programs that already exist and incentivizing initiatives that bolster the creative economy.

“The new Watertown Cultural District will be a crucial building block for the energizing and reimagining of Watertown Square as a gathering place for our community,” said Doug Orifice, Vice Chair of the Watertown Cultural District and President/Co-Founder of the Watertown Business Coalition. “We are grateful to Mass Cultural Council as they continue to be a tremendous partner to our City.”

“I am thrilled that Mass Cultural Council has designated a new Cultural District in Watertown,” said State Representative Steve Owens (D- Watertown). “Thanks to Mass Cultural Council for recognizing the Watertown Cultural Council’s hard work in cultivating robust creative and cultural programming to make this happen. I look forward to seeing Watertown Square become a thriving cultural district as a result of this designation.”

https://massculturalcouncil.org/blog/new-cultural-districts-designated-in-holyoke-watertown-westfield/

Artscope Review: Watertown’s Armenian Museum Widens Our View with Tigran Tsitoghdzyan’s Filtered Identity

By J.M. Belmont, Artscope Nov/Dec 2024

Can you believe what you see, especially when it comes to yourself? In a digital world saturated with artificially generated imagery and where the polished unreality of social media is paramount, life becomes an interminable sequence of double takes. Our perspectives of ourselves are as manicured as our presentations to others, leading to a confusion of identity as the public overruns the private.

The Armenian Museum of America addresses this contradictory reality with “Filtered Identity: The Art of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan.” Though Tsitoghdzyan’s works aren’t digital creations, one could be forgiven for thinking so. What at first appears to be a show of large-scale photographs is in actuality a collection of hyper-realistic paintings.

In his 13-piece exhibition, Tsitoghdzyan asks us “to confront the tension between who we are and how we are seen.” Divided into two sections, “Mirror” and “Self-Isolation,” “Filtered Identity” surveys the past five years of his painting career: the former focusing on “the duality of self-presentation;” the latter a reaction to the early Covid-19 lockdowns.

Each painting takes on a different woman as its subject. These oversized works hang in the museum’s third floor gallery, the large space giving room for each human-size canvas to breathe. In them, Tsitoghdzyan’s subjects show as much as they conceal, appearing both duplicitous and authentic.

Standing at 84” x 60”, the paintings in “Mirror” show seven women in profile, their hands superimposed over their faces. A vertical line formed by the outer edges of their touching hands bisect the lips and nose, both splitting each woman in two and hiding them. The translucent nature gives an evasive, haunted feeling.

The concept arrived with the selfie. “What is this about? All my friends, female especially, started posting selfies every day,” said Tsitoghdzyan. “I was very into portraiture and the self-portrait was reserved for a few great masters like Rembrandt and others.

““The strength of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan’s technique is that he allows the human to be seen. We see the subjects’ emotional and physical inner workings, along with the artist’s own craft: Photogenic perfection from a distance; layered brush strokes and psychological contradiction up-close. It’s as masterful as it is discomforting.”

— J.M. Belmont/Artscope

“The filters were so important that I was thinking that, as a contemporary artist, I should start painting all my friends and everyone I know around me the way they want to be seen by the others.”

In “Mirror I,” 2024, one of the show’s five mixed media on paper works, Tsitoghdzyan has added a maze of interlocking Cocteau-esque drawings — the silver faces, hands and spirals appear and vanish depending on the viewers vantage point.

“Mirror A,” oil on canvas, does away with the fluid linework, leaving the viewer to take in the intricacy of Tsitoghdzyan’s craft. With a rich grayscale tone, he captures his subject’s penetrating eyes and the imperfections of her skin. Within the glassy reflection of her pupils, one can see the artist at work.

Across the gallery, in the works making up “Self-Isolation,” the viewer is confronted with four nude women in both physical and psychological struggle. These canvases, each 80” x 80,” have the effect of

Mirror Metamorphosis Reimagined I, 2022, mixed media on paper, 40” x 40”

a photographic double — sometimes triple or quadruple — exposure. Each subject is seated in contorted states of frustration and boredom. The bottom fourth of the canvas, the floor, is an ink-black bar on which Tsitoghdzyan’s brilliantly rendered women pose.

“Self-Isolation 10,” 2024, shows Tsitoghdzyan’s attention to detail in its extreme, with him perfectly reproducing the small talismanic tattoos on the subject’s fingers and wrists multiple times and in varying positions.

One of the most exciting pieces in the exhibition is “Self-Isolation 6,” 2024. Posed side view, the woman’s overlapping legs create a Cubists effect, while her glossy painted fingernails are offset by the photorealistic texture of her cracked heels. The viewer can easily feel the “tension between personal space and societal expectations” Tsitoghdzyan set out to replicate in the lingering days of the pandemic.

Hung midway, opposing each other across the gallery, are two works that bridge the series together.

“Mirror Metamorphosis Reimagined I,” (and “II”), 2022, mixed media on paper, are both 40” x 40,” but their relatively smaller scale doesn’t stop them from being the exhibition’s most successful pieces. Both focus on their subjects from the shoulders up, employing the “exposure” style present in “Self-Isolation.” Added are “Mirror’s” silver inked sketches, creating an effect akin to sliding a Snapchat filter over an identity crisis.

The strength of Tsitoghdzyan’s technique is that he allows the human to be seen. We see the subjects’ emotional and physical inner workings, along with the artist’s own craft: Photogenic perfection from a distance; layered brush strokes and psychological contradiction up-close. It’s as masterful as it is discomforting.

“Filtered Identity: The Art of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan” will be on view at the Armenian Museum of America through February 23, 2025. When visiting, take the time to view the museum’s thorough chronicle of the Armenian Genocide and its celebratory collection of Armenian art and culture.

Note: We encourage you to visit Artscope magazine’s website (click here) and to sign up for a subscription.

Become a Member of the Armenian Museum of America

A snapshot from our opening reception of the latest contemporary exhibition "Filtered Identity: The Art of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan.” On view through February 2025.

We are thrilled to share that our exhibitions and programming are flourishing, attracting record numbers of visitors. Our galleries--featuring a stunning array of contemporary, medieval, and ancient art--stand alongside the finest museums in the country. We have established ourselves as a premier destination in Boston, welcoming both Armenian and non-Armenian audiences alike.

Here are just a few highlights of our recent achievements:

• Record Attendance: Each year, we welcome thousands of visitors to our expansive three floors of gallery space. Our new displays--including exquisite jewelry, traditional folk instruments, and intricate textiles--captivate and inspire.

• Exciting Exhibitions: We recently launched Tigran Tsitoghdzyan’s groundbreaking exhibition, “Filtered Identity.” His striking hyper-realistic paintings blend classical and modern art.

• Expanding Digital Reach: Our online programming is making our remarkable collection accessible to members across the nation and beyond, fostering a greater appreciation for Armenian culture.

• Collaborative Ventures: Selected by Bank of America as one of just 23 cultural institutions globally for its prestigious Art Conservation Project, we have collaborated with conservators from the Matenadaran to restore rare, illuminated manuscripts in our collection including one dating back to the 13th century!

• Growing Membership: Our membership is at an all-time high, but we need your continued support to sustain this momentum. Being part of our Museum comes with exceptional benefits.

We invite you to renew today. Your membership directly supports our mission to share the rich history and culture of Armenia with the world. Join us in this vital work and be a part of our community’s success story.

Catholicos Aram I Visits the Museum

There was a buzz in the Museum as we welcomed Catholicos Aram I of the Holy See of Cilicia back to our galleries on Oct. 11 to tour our galleries and meet our leadership and staff. His Holiness was warmly greeted by Museum President Michele Kolligian, Vice President Robert Khederian, and Trustees Byron Hartunian and Mark Kolligian.

His Holiness was accompanied by Archbishop Anoushavan Tanielian of the Eastern Prelacy, Archbishop Kegham Kacherian of the Western Prelacy, and several esteemed clergy and leaders of the church including Very Rev. Fr. Hrant Tahanian of St. Stephen’s Armenian Apostolic Church of Watertown.

They toured the galleries and stopped at several items of interest including the NFL Artsakh Cleats that were donated to the Museum by Michele Kolligian and Robert Khederian to raise awareness about the ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure of Armenians from Artsakh since the war.

On Oct. 13, Catholicos Aram I used the arm reliquary from our collection in the Divine Liturgy at St. Stephen’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown. It is the first time this sacred 18th-19th object was used in an official church service since it was rescued from looting or certain destruction in the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Aghavny Demirjian bequeathed this important work of art and Christian heritage to the Museum in 2008, so it can be shared with the public as a testament to Armenia’s faith and survival.

Duo Recital with Haig Hovsepian & Matias Cuevas

Live music returned to our contemporary galleries on Oct. 3 with a recital by Haig Hovsepian (violin) and Matias Cuevas (piano), sponsored by the Dadourian Foundation.

“It’s a pleasure to welcome you all tonight as we are dedicated to preserving and celebrating Armenian culture. I’m thrilled to have you join us for this special event where art and music collide,” stated Development Director Sarah Hayes, who went on to highlight the current exhibition of hyper-realistic paintings by Tigran Tsitoghdzyan.

The following works were performed: Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22 (Clara Schumann), Adagio from the ballet Spartacus (Aram Khachaturian), Much Ado About Nothing Suite for Violin and Piano (Erich Wolfgang Korngold), Rhapsody (Edward Baghdasarian), and Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 13 (Gabriel Fauré).

Photos by Daniel Ayriyan