Date: Dec 10, 2017
A pair of street musicians carved in a beautiful oak-wood is now a permanent installation in downtown Skovby, Denmark. One of the musicians is playing a cello, while his colleague is on saxophone; together they are playing jazz. Passersby smile when they see the contours of the two musicians; once they are closer to the sculpture, they can almost hear dynamic tunes and rhythmic patterns of jazz.
This is Vahe Tokmajyan’s vision of Jazz; he created the project as part of the International Sculpture Symposium in Denmark. People of Skovby loved his artwork and embraced “Jazz” as part of their community. “Jazz” is not the first artwork that Vahe installed outside of Canada. He has been a professional sculptor for over 30 years, and in his career he has created numerous art pieces, some of which are currently installed in China, Argentina, Brazil, France, Italy, etc.
In the past decade Vahe has applied to many public art competitions in Calgary; he was short-listed for a few projects. He believes that Calgary art can benefit from the selection processes that have successfully worked in Europe. In many European art competitions the selection of an artwork is based on the proposed original project, as opposed to selecting an artist who will later create an artwork.
As for “Jazz”, Vahe explains that his artwork was chosen on the preliminary competition stage, where he submitted a sketch of a future sculpture. As a result, he was invited to Denmark to create his project in a large scale, and the City Hall of Skovby has completed the installation process in late November. As of today, the two “Canadian musicians” are playing their music while merged into the community life of the town.
News feed editor's note: this project was not funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. This story was submitted for publishing on the AFA website by a member of the community. (*We love hearing about Alberta artist success stories - keep them coming!)