The “Re-pressions” series introduces Samvel Baghdasaryan’s ongoing artistic inquiry into the political imaginaries and fragilities, informing the historical and transitional period of Armenia’s independence in the early 1990s. For the artist, the use of circles as an artistic gesture has, in and of itself, become a signature and device that developed in several phases. The first phase is historical and factual. The initial idea originated from noticing subtext between the lines of Soviet propaganda books and taking notes (the action of using a circle for each piece of uncovered information). In this context, the circles stood for hidden and privately politicized gestures, behaviors, and acts—the main character of the alternative, underground art scene of the late 1970s in Yerevan. In the early 1990s, making circles became abstract, such as the marker of the unknowns yet to come in reference to the 1991 independence of Armenia. However, this abstract quality also indicated an openness and experimental practice. This quality became the primary source for Baghdasaryan’s monotypes, like the three artworks presented here. From 1995–96 the circles gained another artistic function, this time connected with tallying. Each circle as one unit and content, could be pressed identically and equally, and could also hold together the historical and abstract phases. In other words, the pressing of the circles is the various fixations of different times. It is a reference to a systematic and sequential counting, but fragmented, ruptured, and segmental, as the changes in history and politics—what Baghdasaryan as an Armenian subject and artist, experienced in the context of the Soviet and post-Soviet spaces. For example, another variation/series using specifically the 36 circles refers to the aftermath of the politically repressive years under Stalin’s rule. In this case, the concept of repression is artistically and physically pressed and re-pressed. Baghdasaryan’s inquiry into these complex implications of repressions informs his iconic, large-scale multimedia and electromagnetic installation Accident/Experiment (1995), which was created for the first inaugural Armenian Pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennale.