Art

Art

People's Artist: Armenian who threatened us in France wanted to give us a gift, but we declined

06 August 2025 14:45 (UTC +04:00)

People's Artist Sirus Mirzazade, in an interview with APA, spoke about an interesting yet threatening incident that occurred during an exhibition held in France in 1994–1995.

Mirzazade who stated that 4–5 artists participated in the exhibition said that during a city tour, they entered an Armenian shop and the shop owner started speaking to them in Turkish: “He said, ‘You are not good people — you spat on bread and threw it on the ground, and told our people to pick it up and eat it. You kept them hungry.’ I asked him, ‘Look, you’re speaking Turkish, have you lived in Türkiye?’ He said yes. Then I asked, ‘Has anyone who is Muslim ever spat on bread? A Muslim would pick up the bread, kiss it, put it to their forehead, and then place it somewhere safe so it doesn’t get stepped on.’ He looked at me in astonishment. Then he said, ‘We went to the exhibition and looked at your works, read the titles. There was nothing insulting about war or Armenians. If there had been, we would have destroyed the exhibition.’ Then he asked, ‘What would you like to buy?’ We said, ‘Nothing.’ He wanted to give us a gift, but we didn’t accept it and left the shop.”

Ilkin Naib

Sirus Mirzazade interview APA France exhibition 1994 1995 Armenian shop cultural encounter artist experience art exhibition war themes mutual respect Turkish language threat personal story Azerbaijani artist

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