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A major retrospective exhibition by photographer and master printer Toros Aladjajian, titled “The Light of Black and White,” will be presented in Armenia and the region for the first time to mark the 200th anniversary of photography.
The exhibition is organized by the Center for Contemporary Art (“HayArt Center”), under the Yerevan Municipality, in cooperation with the Embassy of France in Armenia and the French Institute in Armenia.
The exhibition will run from September 11 to December 11 and will feature 114 black-and-white photographs by 55 photographers from 13 countries, exploring the development and interconnection of photography and photographic printing.
The exhibition places particular emphasis on the role of the master printer, presenting Aladjajian’s extensive legacy of black-and-white analog photography and printing created over nearly six decades in Paris.
The retrospective offers an opportunity to explore the creative dialogue between the photographer and the master printer, through which a photograph acquires its final form and full expressiveness. Most of the works on display are from Aladjajian’s personal collection.
The central idea of the exhibition is that a photograph is not solely the result of the photographer’s work. The printing process that follows the creation of a photographic image plays an important role in the final perception of the work and in revealing its artistic potential.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, a renowned French photographer and one of the pioneers of modern photojournalism, also emphasized this approach, saying: “Photography defines the moment, while printing defines eternity.”
According to Sona Harutyunyan, director of the Center for Contemporary Art, the exhibition is important not only from the perspective of the history of photography but also in terms of preserving and promoting cultural heritage.
“Toros Aladjajian’s decades-long creative legacy provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between photography and photographic printing from a new perspective. The large-scale exhibition ‘The Light of Black and White’ is an important artistic project that presents internationally significant photographic heritage in Yerevan while also highlighting the role of printing craftsmanship in completing a photographic work.
“We are pleased that this significant project is being presented at the HayArt Center, operated under the Yerevan Municipality, and particularly value Toros Aladjajian’s personal presence at the exhibition’s opening ceremony,” Harutyunyan said.
The opening ceremony of “The Light of Black and White,” being presented to the public in Armenia and the region for the first time, will take place on September 11, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. at the Center for Contemporary Art, 7a Mashtots Avenue, Yerevan.
Toros Aladjajian will personally attend the opening ceremony.