“…Vahé Berberian sets his vigorous hand to more overtly painterly, as well as more inscriptive, tasks… springing into a modern version of manuscript illumination — not quite comic book, not quite expressionist phantasm, not quite doodle, not quite graffiti, and — knowingly, despite the title of the show (In Sanity) — not quite a madman’s markings.”
Peter Frank
LA Weekly
“Discovering the very personal art of Vahé Berberian is like finding ancient treasure maps, like watching a child first declare his existence for posterity, and like climbing inside a weaving loom that hides the myths of hundreds of years of ethnic rites. The apparent simplicity of his images and scribbled messages has been achieved by mastering his skills not only as a visual artist, but also as a writer, director, performer, and survivor of life hurdles insurmountable by ordinary people.”
Grady Harp
Curator
“…Vahé Berberian's paintings are reminiscent of the graffiti-like works of Cy Twombly and cartoon-like images in the recent works of Philip Guston. When viewing a gallery filled with Vahé Berberian's paintings, the viewer can see a repetition of process, and yet each painting is clearly unique. The artist's method is recognizable, his marks are distinctive, his "handwriting " is clearly his own, and there is a repetitive vocabulary of images that appear and reappear in his paintings. However, Berberian's paintings defy interpretation. He reveals only isolated words and never complete thoughts, his painting obscures as much as it describes. There is no identifiable context for his everyday words and images -- animal and human forms, umbrellas and rain, tables and chairs, along with various references to plumbing -- and yet, they appear again and again. It isn't possible to construct a single meaning for any particular image, because there are multiple possibilities and their meanings must be reconsidered each time because the context changes within each painting.”
Noel Korten
Curator, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
"If you took everything away from him it would not matter. For he would make art out of the air. I know, for I’ve seen his shadow work by the naked light"
Michael Johnston
Playwright
Praise for the Play “Pink Elephant”
"No play on the Fringe could be more topical than Pink Elephant. It is an impressive exercise in political theatre, which also plays about with the boundaries between theatre and life much like Pirandello, Shakespeare or Calderon for that matter."
The Scotsman
Scotland
"With Pink Elephant, the writer Vahé Berberian, a Lebanese-Armenian living in California, has given us a curiously involving piece which brings freshness and vigour..."
The Guardian
England
"This is a stunning play... Keeps the audience totally attentive."
The List
Edinburgh, Scotland
"There is a defiant and heartening vitality about Pink Elephant. It's good value. If you want to learn how to respond to depressing news with humanity and a laugh, it should be prescribable under the NHS for anyone contemplating suicide."
What's On
London
Reviews of the Movie "Pink Elephant"
"... of the three films, Ara Madzounian's The Pink Elephant is perhaps the most compelling: spoken In Armenian with subtitles, the film tells the story of a group of actors trying to put on a play in Beirut during a heavy bombardment. The juxtaposition of art and life, with actors worrying first about lines, then about opening night, and finally about sheer survival, is nicely handled. The film also pulsates with the raw, angry energy of a filmmaker who already has an intimate knowledge of barbarism and death, who batters us with documentary images of a massacre as his stars huddle in a bomb shelter arguing about a play."
Mary Beth Crain
LA Weekly
"... one of the best, Ara Madzounian's The Pink Elephant – in Armenian with subtitles – portrays the Lebanese Civil War with marvelous economy: The crises and self-realization of a troupe of theatre actors caught in cataclysm. One freeze-frame of an actress twirling a parasol in a basement recalls Truffaut or DeBorca."
Michael Wilmington
The Los Angeles Times
2007 The Armenian Reporter - The Art and Life of Art
2005 Armenian Palette: New Generation by Henrik Igityan, Yerevan, Armenia
2005 Pakine - “Vahe Berberian: Art and Sanctity", Beirut Lebanon.
2003 LA Weekly - “Pick of the Week,” Vahé Berberian’s In Sanity.
2003 Armenian Contemporary Artists - From Ararat to Armenia, Catalogue.
2002 Agenda: 4 Paintings - Arvest 2002, Los Angeles, CA.
2002 Agenda: 2 Paintings - Sonia Rykiel 2002, Paris, France.
2001 Modern Icon: Exhibition Catalogue - Los Angeles, CA.
2000 AIM Magazine - April Issue, Los Angeles, CA.
2000 Agenda - Sonia Rykiel 2000, Paris, France.
1997 Agenda: 2 Paintings - Sonia Rykiel 1997, Paris, France.
1996 Vahé Berberian: Pages From a Diary - Arvest Press, Los Angeles, CA.
1995 Agenda - Pilgrims Also Die, Sonia Rykiel 1995. July 1, Paris, France.
1994 Cahiers Intenpestifs - Editions S'printer, Saint Etienne, France.
1994 Agenda - Balcony, Sonia Rykiel 1994. September 30. Paris, France.
1994 Art Agenda '94 - Paradise Lost, AAA Publishing, March 28, Quebec, Canada.
1992 Les Peintres du Desir - How Many Like Me" Noel, Bernard. Pages 156-157, Paris, France.
