BROOKLYN, NY.- “Path to Nine,” an installation by artist Zadik Zadikian, is featured in the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th Anniversary “Solid Gold” exhibition on view from November 16, 2024-July 6, 2025. Zadikian’s immersive sculpture explores the themes of structure, repetition, and transformation through the medium of gold.

“My work is about filing a void,” says Zadikian. “It’s always been about reconnection to a lost world. A world we threw away too quickly only to realize there was gold dust inside that camouflaged itself as mud.”

“Path to Nine,” composed of 18 towering stacks of gold-leaf gilded ingots, is arranged in a checkered pattern. These 999 plaster ingots, with embedded stainless steel rods, symbolize the artist’s meditative investigation into the mathematical and mystical properties of numbers, especially the number nine. The installation draws attention to Zadikian’s lifelong fascination with gold, not just as a precious metal but as a symbol of endurance, purity, and cosmic witnessing. With “Path to Nine,” he continues this exploration, fusing material beauty with deep philosophical inquiry.

Additionally, Zadikian is preparing for Layering Reason, a site-specific monument for the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan, Armenia, to honor the soldiers who fell during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war that will be on view from April 2025 - April 2026. This deeply personal and communal project combines cascading black acrylic panels with thousands of abstract gold portraits to evoke themes of loss, memory, and resilience while serving as a symbol of hope for future generations.

Zadik Zadikian

Artist Zadik Zadikian, born in Soviet Armenia in 1948 and currently based in Los Angeles, has built a career exploring the intersection of material, structure, and transformation. In 1967, after studying at the Art Academy of Erevan, he fled the Soviet Union at 18, leaving behind family and home to embark on a journey of artistic and personal reinvention. He later studied at the Istanbul Art Academy and the Art Academy of Rome.

In 1969, he arrived in San Francisco, where he met and became an assistant to sculptor Benjamin Bufano, a friend of Constantin Brâncuși. In 1974, he moved to New York, became friends with Richard Serra, and assisted him in producing many of his black oil-stick wall drawings. Serra named the first of these after "Zadikian."

After working with Serra, Zadikian focused on establishing his unique artistic identity using industrial gold as his unifying material. He covered his studio with industrial gold by pounding and gilding to transform the space into a singularly radiant vision.

In 1978, working with friend and art dealer Tony Shafrazi, Zadikian created "1,000 Bricks gilded in 24 Karat Gold Leaf." This piece was the beginning of his focus on repetition as a tool for transformation.

In the early 2000s, Zadikian moved from New York to Los Angeles to pursue large-scale public works. In 2002, with grants from the City of Los Angeles and other municipalities, he produced the Caravan Project, a mobile public art exhibition that toured the Los Angeles area for seven days. This project enabled Zadikian to deconstruct/invert the traditional white box art gallery.

Currently, Zadikian works in the arts district in DTLA’s “The Row,” where several site-specific installations are displayed in his 5,000 sq/ft studio, including a 50’ diameter golden disc rising out of the ground and an all-gold studio space. Zadikian continues to produce and exhibit works that explore the nature of materials.

Selected Exhibitions include:

Solid Gold (Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY 2024),
TransAngeles (Chabot Museum, Rotterdam (NL) 2016),
Art Dubai (Etemad Gallery, Dubai, 2011),
Newport Harbor Art Museum (Solo, Newport Beach, CA 1985),
Tony Shafrazi Gallery (New York, NY, 1986, 1983),
Tony Shafrazi Gallery (Solo, New York, 1980, 1979),
P.S.1(Solo, New York, NY 1977),
112 Greene Gallery (Solo, New York, NY 1974, 1973.)