Hrag Vartanian and Veken Gueyikian didn’t meet inside the art world. They met at an AGBU Young Professionals’ New Year’s Eve party in 2005, far from the museums and gatekeepers they would eventually challenge. “We were the only openly gay people there,” Vartanian recalls. By 2008, they were married. A year later, they launched Hyperallergic; an unapologetic “blogazine” set out to do what much of the art world wouldn’t: make criticism accessible and worth reading. What started as a passion project has since become a cultural powerhouse disrupting the art world. Hyperallergic is part newsroom, part blog, but altogether unafraid to call out the power structures shaping art and who gets to participate in it. With more than a million monthly readers, a podcast, and growing editorial team, Hyperallergic hasn’t just carved out space in the conversation, it’s rewritten who the conversation is for.
“It’s a project of the heart,” Vartanian says aptly. On a bright winter morning, the two sit side-by-side and reflect on the exponential growth of Hyperallergic. The synergy between them is palpable as they finish each other’s sentences and advocate for the hard work the other has poured into Hyperallergic. “One of the reasons we started Hyperallergic was because Hrag was writing art criticism for about a decade, but wasn’t getting paid,” Gueyikian starts. “Very little,” Vartanian interjects. At the time, Gueyikian was a digital marketing strategist and Vartanian an art critic who was simultaneously buttressing AGBU’s communications department. The two were inspired to create a publication that made art criticism accessible while paying writers for their work.
That foundation was shaped, in many ways, by their Armenian identity. Both Vartanian and Gueyikian grew up in diasporic communities where identity and storytelling were deeply valued. Vartanian, who was born in Aleppo and grew up in Toronto, spent his formative years at the AGBU Center and AGBU Scouts, eventually becoming a leader before moving to Beirut to work at Haigazian University. “My mom used to drive 45 minutes each way to the AGBU Center when I was a kid. She demonstrated how important it was to be connected to the community and other Armenians in a way that imprinted on me it was worth making the effort,” Vartanian says. “Being Armenian and feeling connected to that history and culture was really important to us growing up, and I feel like we carry that forward,” adds Gueyikian, who grew up in New Jersey’s Armenian community. As a chemical engineering and pre-med student at Tufts University, Gueyikian was part of the AGBU Global Leadership Program before pivoting to healthcare marketing. Both shared a sense of responsibility to community, history, and truth, which would later become central to Hyperallergic’s mission.
For Vartanian, an AGBU project crystallized that sense of purpose. While writing for the AGBU Magazine, Vartanian interviewed Armenian journalist Hrant Dink just months before his assassination. At the time, Dink’s voice had not yet reached the full breadth of the Diaspora. “He was so honored that we were telling his story,” Vartanian recalls. “Seeing someone willing to take that risk to tell the truth was really inspiring,” he says. “After Hrant Dink was assassinated, I started blogging very politically. It taught me the power of journalism.”
With limited resources but a clear vision, they built the site from the ground up, investing their own savings, working full-time jobs, and pouring 15-hour days into what would become Hyperallergic. It officially launched in October 2009, a pivotal time for Internet culture. Social media was becoming mainstream, the real-time web was on the rise, and forums were everywhere. Though the media landscape was evolving rapidly, outside of a few newspapers, art criticism remained largely inaccessible to broader audiences.
Within months, the publication began gaining traction, signaling that there was, in fact, an audience for this kind of work. “Within the first year, we started to get both praise and criticism from some high-level places, some executives, and museums, and that’s when I realized that people really care about what we write and it’s making an impact,” said Gueyikian. For Vartanian, this watershed moment came when New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl retracted his position on the sale of the Detroit Institute of Arts collection after his Hyperallergic article denounced this move. “It felt like a really powerful moment where we could help safeguard this cultural heritage that was important to the people of Detroit, but also [proved] that people took us and conversations about art seriously,” says Vartanian. “I think that kind of real-world impact felt super powerful at the time.”
And to think, Hyperallergic could have been a blog about allergies. “I had a lot of very serious allergies,” Vartanian says with a laugh. “Originally, I was thinking of starting an allergy blog, believe it or not. I kept the name in my back pocket after I gave up on that idea.” The tongue-in-cheek Hyperallergic was distinctive and unconventional, but it also captured the spirit of the publication. “We wanted strong reactions,” Vartanian explains. “That denotes the type of journalism and criticism in writing we wanted to do, where so much of it is very mealy-mouthed. We wanted to make sure that we had clear opinions and thoughts.” At a time when much of the art world favored cautious language, Hyperallergic embraced clarity and conviction.
After Hrant Dink was assassinated, I started blogging very politically. It taught me the power of journalism.
The early years required persistence. Vartanian, who stepped down as editor-in-chief last fall, balanced editorial responsibilities with a full-time role, often working long hours to write, edit, and manage the publication’s voice. Gueyikian focused on building the business side: overseeing operations, advertising, and long-term sustainability. It took several years before Hyperallergic could support them both full-time, but their commitment never wavered. It wasn’t until 2014 that Hyperallergic broke even. In 2018, Nieman Reports cited Hyperallergic’s revenue to be $1.5 million, an increase from $1.1 million in 2016. “We decided if there was a problem, we’d say, is that publishing or editorial? And then we just trusted that the other person would take the lead,” Vartanian says.
Hyperallergic addressed issues that were often overlooked, from labor practices to inequities within the cultural sector, while also amplifying voices that had traditionally been excluded. “We weren’t just looking at the most powerful and the richest. We were looking at the whole ecosystem and trying to find where those weaknesses were and who’s being exploited and why,” Vartanian explains. From the beginning, they prioritized paying writers and creating opportunities within the field, an approach that set them apart at a time when many contributors went uncompensated and unpaid internships were the norm. They also worked to support a broader network of independent art publications, reinforcing Hyperallergic’s ethos that cultural ecosystems thrive through collaboration. While building Hyperallergic, Gueyikian founded “Nectar Ads,” a network supporting small art and design publications. “At one point, we were selling ads for over a dozen art websites to support this ecosystem of small indie publishers,” he says. “We tried to support others with the theory that rising tides lift all boats, and we could really push forward together.”
As media continues to evolve with the rise of artificial intelligence, their direction remains clear. “We’re focused on creating something written by humans for humans,” Gueyikian says. This is clear with a scroll through Hyperallergic’s homepage, covering everything from academic strikes to criticism of awards season and critiques of prestigious art shows. Vartanian emphasizes the importance of maintaining perspective and critical thinking in an increasingly automated landscape. “Striving towards excellence and opinion is what makes this human. And I don’t think AI could ever fully reproduce that.” Though they recognize AI as a tool, they raise concerns about the fake information landscape. “AI is going to create a very mediocre information ecosystem,” he warns. “But I think of AI as a camera. Just because you can take a photograph doesn’t make you a good photographer.” Evidently, originality is paramount, now more than ever.
Nearly two decades after its founding, Hyperallergic stands as a powerful example of what can be built through vision, persistence, and partnership. “Growing up, people would often say things like, you can’t be gay or queer and also Armenian. And I think we kind of proved that you can be,” Vartanian says. “You can be very fully Armenian and fully queer—and you can be fully part of a community.”
Their story is a testament to risk-taking, to challenging conventions, and remaining grounded in one’s values. Vartanian has since been a visiting critic at the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of California-Davis, Pratt Institute, and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, to name just a few. And in 2024, Hyperallergic was featured in filmmaker Mary Louise Schumacher’s documentary Out of the Picture, winning several jury prizes. In the same year, Vartanian won the Rabkin Lifetime Achievement Award for his visual arts writing. He is currently the host of the Hyperallergic podcast, which has released over 100 episodes, while curating shows and working on his own nonfiction and fiction writing. Gueyikian continues to manage the business operations of Hyperallergic, building the membership that keeps the site running.
Nearly two decades later, Hyperallergic stands as proof of what passion and partnership can produce. What began in a room where they didn’t quite belong has since become a platform that makes space for others. It’s a healthy reminder that truth, delivered without apology, can be its own form of art.
