We are proud to announce that the Shafrazian Foundation has pledged the remaining budget for the Armenian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale. With this commitment, Zadik Zadikian’s The Studio is fully funded, seven weeks before the pavilion opens.
The Foundation made its first gift to the pavilion in December 2025. This month it agreed to carry the balance, paid in instalments as production moves from Los Angeles to Venice. The first arrived today.
A friendship of fifty years
The pledge continues a long story. Tony Shafrazi, who co-curates the pavilion with Tina Chakarian, and Zadik Zadikian have worked together since the 1970s. In 1978, in Tehran, Zadikian showed One Thousand Gold Bricks, a field of gilded bricks laid across the floor.
Nearly half a century later, the brick is back at the centre of the work: a pigmented plaster unit, cast by hand, stacked into forms that visitors will watch being made.
In the studio this month
Thank you
A national pavilion depends on the people who believe in it before it exists. We thank the Shafrazian Foundation for making The Studio possible, and for its faith in Armenian art on the world’s stage.
The pavilion opens on 9 May 2026 at Tesa 41, Arsenale, Venice. Follow it at armenianpavilion.org.