The most famous woman with a camera in Central Asia, Umida Akhmedova—a photographer and the author of significant documentary works—talks about herself, her creative and personal path, self-realization in the face of public censure and rejection, a lawsuit against her, and the changes that women in Central Asia feel today.

An Interview with

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Umida Akhmedova

Umida Akhmedova is a photographer and photojournalist working and living in Central Asia. In 2010 she was convicted of “slander of the Uzbek nation” after making a documentary. Since 2010, she can not participate in any official exhibitions in Uzbekistan. As a photographer she has participated in exhibitions addressing urban and rural issues and has collaborated on film and book projects including the presentation of the short film The Burden of Virginity. As an Associated Press photographer, her images have been published in the photography sections of the online editions of The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail.  In the course of her work she has documented the traditions, disparate cultures and everyday events in the modern borders of Uzbekistan.

 Wikipedia

About Myself

I always start a story about myself with the fact that when a person is 17 years old, he/she does not always know what he/she needs in life, hence he/she has no idea what he/she needs to do in life, and ambitions usually lead somewhere. Ambitious people always know that they need to do something so as not to disappear from the earth without a trace. It was with such thoughts that I unexpectedly found myself at the door of the Vladimir Kultprosvet (a cultural and educational school in the Vladimir Oblast of Russia). After failing to gain admission to Moscow State University as a girl from Parkent (in the Tashkent district of Uzbekistan), I could not return home. Now I understand, soberly assessing my academic preparedness at that time, that I could not have entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, but as a young girl I had high hopes. The school in Vladimir was not at all a prestigious educational institution. As my husband says, I was pressed against the wall. I had to study because I had left my home in Parkent for good. This school helped me find myself: I connected my life with photography. We were given FED cameras, and we took pictures ourselves, processed the pictures ourselves. At that time, I had a symbolic dream that foretold my future fate: I saw my photos and they were moving.

After graduating from the cultural and educational school in Vladimir, I resolved to continue my studies in the camera department of VGIK (the Moscow cinematography school). To do this, it was necessary to work as an assistant cameraman at a film studio. Before hiring me, the director of the film studio summoned my father. He told him that no girl had ever been hired as a cameraman, but that after looking at my photos, he was inclined to give me a chance. It was hard to work as an assistant cameraman, because the male operators did not really want a girl to carry the equipment behind them.

Nevertheless, I was preparing to enter VGIK, where there were strict criteria for admission. By a happy coincidence, I met on the set the chairman of the Panorama photo club, Mikhail Stein, who really helped me to prepare for the exams and later to become a photographer. Due to the experience of working in a photo club, I gained the knowledge for the creative competition for admission to VGIK. I passed that test—at VGIK they really liked my photos—and enrolled in the “feature cinema operator” department. I continued to work and studied via distance learning. In my third year, I asked the director of Uzbekfilm (the film studio) to hire me, as I wanted to become qualified as a feature film operator?. However, this time I had no luck. So I have stayed in the documentary industry, which I no longer regret at all. I would add that it is almost impossible to combine films and photography. I “departed” from photography during the perestroika period—or, as I like to say, the period “when socialism had not left, but the time of ‘Mustakkilik’ (independence) had not yet come.” It was a good period for creators because there was no state censorship or strict control thanks to Gorbachev’s short-lived Glasnost (publicity).

Later, when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no point in staying at UzKinochronika either morally or financially. At that turbulent time, I threw myself headlong into my family and into photography. I have always photographed what I liked or what I considered significant. The image of my hometown, Parkent, did much to inspire my works. Even when I left my father’s house and later moved to Tashkent, that image was always with me.

See more photos by Umida Akhmedova: A visual journey through Uzbek society: Ten iconic moments by photographer Umida Akhmedova

Parkent

In general, I have great respect for cosmopolitans, people who can live and create far from their roots. Unfortunately, I have a different story. It’s okay to be a globalist, a cosmopolitan, but to me, it is important to have a connection to your roots, the place where you were born.

There were many people—among them my parents—who were not obsessed with the issues of patriotism or sources of roots. Speaking of my parents, I would like to note that I consider my parents to be intelligent people, although my mother did not work officially anywhere. She had a phenomenal memory. In her life, she learned three alphabets: Latin, Cyrillic, and later Arabic, as she was deeply religious and wanted to read the Quran in its original language. She read many books. If all believers were like my mother, then there would never have been a single conflict on religious grounds. My dad was a doctor, a participant in the Second World War (1941-1945). All my relatives lived in Parkent. My maternal grandparents were progressive, they were literate. It seems to me that being a pioneer meant more in those years than it would later.

I think the intelligentsia are the intelligentsia everywhere; this does not depend on nationality. It is about spirituality, and my father understood this very well. He taught us to respect other cultures. Despite having been a soldier who fought on the front lines, he was not against German culture. He could distinguish between politics and art, and knew that one should not be confused with the other. This affected my family. My sister, for example, became a literary editor, writer, and translator. She has been translating world classics into Uzbek. I think the role of my family in my development is very important. Moreover, my love for Parkent—as my source, my family-related roots—is very important to me.

Husband

I will not say that Oleg [Oleg Karpov, her husband] was immediately accepted by my family. In our society, there was and still is a certain concern about shame, prompting questions like “What will people say?” and “How will we look in their eyes?” Such questions overwhelmed my parents, but I am grateful to them for not throwing tantrums. My parents showed wisdom, understanding that what is good for a child is good for the child’s parents. They treated my husband with great respect. From the very beginning, our relationship was based on mutual respect. Nobody was going to win over—or submit to—someone else. That is, no one was going to become Uzbek—or, conversely, become Russian. We understood that we were different and accepted our differences with great respect. That is, as usual in my environment, there was no cursing (“ok kyldym”). I knew a family in which the girl’s mother was Russian and her father was Uzbek. Despite the fact that the girl was not a pure Uzbek, her father cursed her for marrying a non-Uzbek. That friend put her son in an Uzbek kindergarten, and when the child went to his grandparents’ house and greeted his bobo (grandfather) in Uzbek, the grandfather kicked the child out. The child peed out of fear. This hostility toward people of different nationalities, which reaches horrific proportions in some families, did not happen in mine. I cannot say that I have felt discrimination or humiliation. This has not happened to us.

Women with Cameras

I was the first girl from Central Asia to graduate from the Cinematography Department of VGIK. Previously, I did not emphasize that I was the first and only, because I thought that I had not done enough for this. However, I accept it as a fact now.

As I said above, the cinematic community met me with suspicion; they did not trust me completely. The male directors were in no hurry to work with me. Gradually, once I proved that I was a serious specialist, they began to work with me. At the film studio, I had my own teachers among the cameramen, in particular Kakhramon Khasanov. I admired his attitude toward the profession. I received credence from a woman director, Galina Ogurnaya. She and I made such films as “The Deadlock of Baysun,” “Milky Way,” and “Zainuddin’s Golden Apple,” among others. She was a film director, I was a director for cinematography, but unfortunately, I did not work in the film industry for long. I consider men as techno whizzes; they are much more inclined to follow the technical rules. It is always more interesting for me to reflect the mood or the atmosphere than to pay attention to the correctness of the frame, staging, and composition while filming. It seems to me that this is less about gender than about your psychotype—your sensitivity and perception of the world. It also depends on your type of thinking.

Men are often more organized than women—but again, not always. Everyone is an individual, and therefore I can’t say that there are big gender differences between men and women’s works. Let’s take a look at the work of Margarita Pilikhina, a director of cinematography for the film Ilyich’s Outpost. It seems to me that a man would never have filmed as she did. She was an extremely talented artist. Unfortunately, she passed away early. I grew up at a time when the operator was a co-author of the film director. Now I don’t see this. We were taught to show our visual version of the scripts. We were taught to develop our handwriting. It seems to me now that cameramen shoot beautifully, evenly, but almost everyone has the same handwriting; few people have a creative personality. Certainly, this does not mean that they shoot badly; there is simply no individual style in the camera work.

Creative Path

It is very difficult for us to be creative in Central Asia. It always used to be hard, but now it’s even harder, I think. In general, we consider a woman with a camera extraordinary. I am still not considered an “earthly” person by my neighbors in Parkent. People are always surprised when I tell them that I have children and grandchildren. There is an opinion in society that a woman with a camera cannot have a family, and everyone is surprised at my “normality”—having a family is the norm in our society. I remember when I was shooting in my Parkent in Soviet times, I felt the same as those who had taken off the veil. From all sides, I heard ridicule, mockery. Yet although it was difficult at that time, there was a better attitude toward women with cameras; now, I think, the situation has deteriorated. Back then, there was the excuse that people were building the future, and therefore the difficulties of becoming were understandable, but today, people no longer have faith in the future.

The attitude toward women here has always been suboptimal. From my perspective, I came into the profession from nowhere. During the Soviet times, a recommendation was important—it mattered “who brought you there.” It was important who was backing you; there were all these behind-the-scenes games on the path to professional growth. It was hard for me because I was not just a girl with a camera, but also a girl “from nowhere,” without connections and support. However, I had a strong desire to become a professional in my field. It was very difficult to grow without this extra support. I remember everyone who hurt me, but I don’t want to say their names right now. Many of them are no longer in this world. Besides the negativity, there was a lot of positivity too. There were always friends nearby, most of whom were professionals in my industry.

Trial

Exactly 13 years ago, in February 2010, there was a trial not only against me, but against a large group of people.[1] The witch hunt began due to a fear of the Color Revolutions that were taking place in the post-Soviet space. That was the first reason. The second one was about the gender programs that bothered the authorities. It was important for the State Prosecution to know on whose initiative we had made our films, which organizations had commissioned them, what goals we pursued in our work. I have to admit that independent people are not liked everywhere. There is always a bit of annoyance toward people who are outside control. This is always an unpleasant feature of authoritarian societies, as it is believed that only the authorities have the right to public spaces. I remember accusations against the Soros Foundation, the Tashkent branch of which was closed in 2004. Then we had the Andijan bloody events in 2005. After these occurrences, repression of civil society increased, and many public organizations and activists suffered. They treated civil activists very rudely and unceremoniously.

My husband and I produced a film, The Burden of Virginity, that was the main argument for the charge of “insulting the feelings of the Uzbek people.” This film was accepted neither by the Gender Program at the Swiss Embassy in the Republic of Uzbekistan nor by the public. However, we screened it at the Cinema Museum founded by my husband, Oleg Karpov. There was a newsbreak due to Fergana.ru and therefore Oleg and I turned out to be the main defendants in this case. We were all granted amnesty later on, but I still do not like to remember that time. I felt great irritation that this was an insult to all active creative work and a clear civic position. I felt an echo of the Soviet legacy in the fact that I had to report to the authorities, who sought to control us all, in front of everyone. I’m glad that I had strong support in my family; thanks to the support of my husband, Oleg Karpov, I survived everything.

Women’s Creativity

Whether Uzbek or Tajik, as women from traditional societies, we have always had limited rights in terms of our actions. Nevertheless, I always have great respect for our women: it seems to me that if our women want something, they always achieve it. Unfortunately, there are few examples, but they still exist. I believe that self-realization requires inner strength. You can’t go anywhere without it. Your life is in your own hands, and an ability to take risks is required for self-realization. “You can’t be a little pregnant” is a saying in Russian. If you worry about what people say, you will never achieve anything. You have to hold on; do not be afraid to stand out from the crowd. My neighbors got used to me, and your neighbors will get used to you. I remember that when I used to walk around with cameras hanging around my neck, everyone used to stare at me, but then they got used to me and I got used to them. I think no one in the neighborhood can now imagine me without a camera. The environment accepted me for who I am.

You have to get what you want for yourself. No one will come and do it for you. In general, what is the recipe here? We understand very well where we live, in what kind of society we reside. For example, sometimes I am asked about not covering my head. I reply that it is my choice to go without a headscarf. That is it. Women should do what they want to do, not what society expects from them. I love our rituals and traditions very much, but I do not always want to follow them. For example, why should I have a grand wedding to please society? I won’t do something to please anyone. We have to learn to rise above conventions. Actually, I am the same wife, mother, grandmother, I just spend more of my time on my profession, on self-realization. I realize that it is absolutely impossible to become free from society, but why not become an example of staying above convention?

Unfortunately, nowadays the situation is not very good for positive changes. If in Soviet times there was an ideology supported by the main Party Committee or the Komsomol, now this is all gone. Previously, in our youth, what we desired was knowledge, perseverance for excellence, but this is no longer the case. Now everyone wants to get married, if not legally, then at least illegally as a second, third wife, but always “to a wealthy man.” It makes me wonder why the victims of the liberation of the women of the East were needed, if my sisters are so comfortable being “slaves” to the rules. Ichgari (the inner side of the house where only a woman’s husband could enter) has become a symbol of young women’s success. Now, women are ready to endure many humiliations just to have the status of being married.

Success

I am quite successful. I consider my education, the realization of my goals in my distant youth, to be my first achievement. The opportunity to meet new people and cultures is a further achievement. I feel empty if I don’t travel around the world. It is very important to travel and return home. My next achievement is my family. I am happy that I have a family, children and grandchildren. My husband is my co-author, my colleague, and my support. Despite the difference in our cultures, we have been able to create a strong family. My son (Timur Karpov), who is in the same profession as my husband and I, is different. I learn from him, because he belongs to the generation of younger modern visualists. There is always something new to learn about and to grasp.

[1] Umida Akhmedova was convicted of “offense through mass media” by the court in the capital, Tashkent, after government experts found her documentary “offensive to the Uzbek nation.” She could have been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but was released under an amnesty in honor of the 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence.

All photos by
Umida Akhmedova

The artist, philosopher, and writer Vyacheslav Akhunov stands out in the Central Asian art landscape. He created his own art movement – Sotsmodernism – based on the rejection of Soviet art as part of the whole totalitarian system, countercultural values, and his personal moral choice. Vyacheslav Akhunov employs the typical iconography of the Socialist propaganda of the Soviet period, subverting then dominant ideology through the exploitation of widespread propagandistic images.

Interview with

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Vyacheslav Akhunov

Born in 1948 in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Lives and works in Tashkent.

Vyacheslav Akhunov is an artist, writer and philosopher. He works in the techniques of collage, painting, installation, performance, video, and is also the author of numerous essays and novels. Since the early 2000s, Akhunov began to explore the possibilities of new media, especially video. His work highlights the paradoxes of cultural marginality. He also explores the changes and problems of social inequality in his own region, indirectly commenting on the development of collective religiosity in a once secular society. His works are always aimed at integrity and personal responsibility, no matter what power structure this person belongs to.

Among the latest exhibitions of the artist, BALAGAN!!!, Berlin (2015), 5th Moscow Biennale (2013), Pavilion of Central Asia at the Venice Biennale (2013, 2007, 2005), 1st Kiev Biennale (2012), Documenta (2013), Kassel (2011), Ostalgia, New Museum, New York (2011), Time of the Storytellers, KIASMA, Helsinki (2007), Montreal Biennale (2007) and 1st Singapore Biennale (2006).

 http://aspangallery.com/ru/artists/akhunov 

“I suddenly felt that the Soviet times were coming back again, I could feel the cadaverous smell of stagnation. What does this have to do with? With the fall of the Empire we had a renaissance of communist ideas; it has been very noticeable in Russia in recent years. That is why I brought my ‘mantras’ (‘Red Mantras of the USSR: We Will Live Under Communism’) to the exhibition. Today’s situation prompted me to struggle with the means available to the artist. This is not nostalgia; this is a feeling: something has to be done.” These words from your 2016 interview are very relevant today. Going back in time, tell us about how you destroyed the language and image of Soviet ideology through “Social Modernism.”

Andrey Fomenko, an art historian from St. Petersburg, clearly described my artwork in his article “Lone Ranger of Contemporary Art”—in particular, as “a representative of the Uzbek independent art scene, linking two eras of nonconformist art, Soviet and post-Soviet.” What I drew, collaged, and wrote in self-made books was part of my struggle against the Soviet regime and against tradition as it was understood by the official, top-down Marxist-Leninist aesthetic. I was liberating my consciousness from this tradition, from the method of socialist realism, with its inevitable secondary character and propaganda cultural production. This is what happened on one of my first projects, “Leniniana by Vyacheslav Akhunov,” when the idea came to focus on the works of the most famous Soviet socialist realist artists.

Using mass-produced printed materials, I combined the formalities of modernism and the discourse of socialist realism. Now many are trying to forget that Soviet artists had a clear ideological goal: to help the party colonize the consciousness of the masses with an emphasis on local features—that is, against the background of the active “erasing” of age-old traditions, to create a new identity of the Soviet man, the builder of communism. Thus, over the course of several decades, a socialist tradition developed in Soviet art. Using the metaphor of artistic expression to capture the sense of time and elude censorship, I archived drawings and notes that stood in clear contrast to the Soviet tradition, already stagnating, totalitarian, oppressive, out of date. In general, these were non-conformist artistic positions that fought against the Soviet in art, which was opposed to the Western art of modernism and which, unlike the global mainstream, turned into something divorced from the real course of time and the needs of people, into the sketchy dry party agitation and propaganda language of the Soviet ideological machine, into a narrowly local, provincial, distorted understanding of art and national cultures.

Collage series: ArtChaeology of the USSR. Mummification. Artist’s book, pen, walnut ink, 1980

This combination of the art form of Western modernism and the narrative of socialist realism I have called Socialist Modernism. In the late 1970s, I decided that this would be a good name. Later, in the 1980s, I heard that there was a Sotsart. For me, Sotsart is witty, but still an oxymoron, because it comes from pop art, which did not exist in the USSR. Sotsart—what is it? Social art or socialist art? It’s not clear… As for socialist modernism, this movement can be safely called post-socialist realism or Soviet postmodernism, thus revealing similarities with Western post-modernism: appropriation, installation, attraction of all known art forms of the past and present. In other words, socialist modernism is the final phase of the development of socialist realism—its opposite.

A number of factors influenced the formation of my views and lifestyle. For example, in the early 1970s, I worked as a designer in Osh art workshops, worked part-time painting a monument to Lenin, drew endless strings of propaganda posters calling for communist work, and created panels for Soviet holidays. I ended up giving up this lucrative job. My father asked: “Where are you from, why do you hate the Soviet regime so much?” Maybe it was a generational conflict, or maybe it was the influence of the environment. Dad had strange friends, without teeth or without fingers, and when they spoke quietly, I heard about the camps where they were imprisoned… One artist lived not far from our barracks; he had nothing but albums, brushes and paints, a wooden trestle bed, a blanket and a metal mug in which he boiled tea (he boiled soup in a tin can). This man kept waiting to be taken back to the camp. Then why start things, to whom to leave all this? Once, when my father began to build a house on the outskirts of the city, we dug clay on a cliff near the river and the bank collapsed and skulls that had been shot fell down. Father turned white as chalk; we quickly dug it all back and left. Then I found out that in this place NKVD officers had carried out mass executions. This is how my attitude toward the Soviet developed, then jazz, rock and roll, and other Western influences were superimposed on it. And my work was formed from the standpoint of “certain views” … I deliberately created an alienated, borderline space in which only personal, private, independent should operate, because it was in such a free space that a mobile system of independent aesthetic ideas could function in Soviet times, and as a result, something new could emerge. For example, social modernism as blurring the boundaries between the hostile ideologies of two opposing political and economic systems, with their artistic territories and languages.

I had no desire to fit into the Moscow environment of non-conformists. Asia beckoned with its provincial tranquility, mountain landscapes, and free life in cozy, sleepy valleys. Returning home after studying in Moscow, I carried a diploma from an academic art institute, an unwillingness to become a socialist realist artist, the sad experience of a second unsuccessful marriage, knowledge in the field of contemporary art, an aftertaste from the brilliant lectures of the outstanding Soviet semiotician Yuri Lotman and the philosopher Merab Mamardashvili, memories of sprees in the institute dormitory, friends’ faces, and a suitcase with drawings and collages—my experiments in conceptual art, a clearly formed concept of socialist modernism. I felt like a “messiah,” carrying to Central Asia the “teaching” about the new contemporary art, the existence of which was unknown to local artists and art critics. This thought warmed me, but I did not feel any joy or special trepidation, realizing that I was dooming myself to complete misunderstanding and, as a result, to loneliness, although the time of the “nauseous formalists” remained in the 1960s. The train carried me into the Void, where time was absent, and spirituality and sacredness were a cocktail of scientific communism, dialectical materialism, and Marxism-Leninism, sprinkled from above with militant atheism.

The creative intelligentsia of Central Asia, including artists, sacredly kept and maintained the fire on the altar of Marxism-Leninism, as if they had received from the hands of the party the right to control the future. On the other hand, I was well aware that life in the provinces promised me attractive ignorance on the part of the local art community, even if—and I was aware of this—my artistic left-wing conceptual “frills” could accidentally get caught by one of the crooked party activists: ignorance would reliably protect from the socialist realist disease that had gripped artists with an open hostility to Western art, many of whom (it’s no secret) were KGB informants. God forbid that they would begin to “straighten” my mind. And if they could not “straighten it out,” then they could contribute to me being outlawed, with all the attendant consequences.

In the mid-1970s, my projects looked more optimistic: “Leniniana by Vyacheslav Akhunov,” “Flappers,” “Mantras of the USSR,” “Red Party Line,” “Empty Pedestals,” “Doubt,” “Cutouts,” “Bust of the Leader.” But already at that time, a foreshadowing of the “Age of Oblivion” was breaking through in drawings, collages, and paintings in the image of a desert with ribbed dunes and quicksand, sucking in. In the collages of those years, fragments of paintings by socialist realist artists and especially ideological artists with their personal “Leninianas” were invariably moved to the Desert of Forgetfulness, as if to say “everything is not eternal, everything is not permanent.” And the word drowned in the Quicksand of Oblivion. A word-symbol, a word-image, a word-sign, a word closed in on itself. Or maybe they were washed by the winds of change to the surface of the desert, or rescued from the sands by zealous “art-haeologists” while I was laboring to identify the points of intersection between the production of ideological clichés in Soviet art and the analysis of the ideological statements proclaimed by the Communist Party, trying to clarify the formation rules of ideological concepts, the forms of their sequences, couplings, and the coexistence of sometimes contradictory statements. In general, I tried to create my own discourse/movement in contemporary art.

Once, I said that the authorship of my work belonged to another artist. They believed me. The story went in a circle, reaching Almaty, then Tashkent. At first, the artists whispered behind my back. Then they began to discuss in earnest: am I a thief or not, do I have a conscience or not. Some of them are still convinced that I am a thief, that I have appropriated other people’s ideas, that I am exhibiting other people’s works, and that I sign copies of works created by a dead artist. I did not change their minds. For me, this is an extremely curious situation. I am interested in any of the versions voiced. The experience of creating a personal mythology helps to study the origin and spread of gossip, myths—especially in an artistic environment. I firmly believe that if the artist does not create his own individual mythical story from all sorts of side material, he simply disappears without a trace.

The postmodernist methods of deconstruction of ideological discourse that you introduced and used echo the Sotsart of Moscow artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, but you created your own art movement—Sotsmodernizm—independently of them while in Tashkent.

What are the differences between these two movements?

A characteristic difference between these movements is revealed by comparing two art works. One belongs to Vitaly Komar/ Alexander Melomid and another is mine from the project “Doubt.” Both artworks are related to the slogan “OUR OBJECTIVE IS COMMUNISM!” In the first creation, Komar and Melomid place their names under the slogan, as if appropriating the authorship of the statement, offering sarcasm and irony as a counterpoint to political party rhetoric in an emphatically demonstrative parody context. The parodic context is at the core of their masterpiece.

In my case, the exclamation point is changed to a question mark, producing the inquiry “Is our goal communism?” Behind the question lies doubt. A totalitarian communist regime cannot tolerate doubters. To question the sacred slogans of the Communist Party is tantamount to doubting the Party’s activities. Therefore, my question represents a revision of the world’s first state of workers, peasants and Soviets, a revision of all communist values and “grandiose” achievements in building socialism—in other words, a call for democracy. Doubt is the first step toward truth. Does the Soviet man have the right to doubt, the right to know the truth?

The monopoly of opinion, of truth, was appropriated by Lenin’s party. Any attempt to discover the real state of affairs in the country, to get at the truth—the real truth—at that time was equated with acts of counter-revolution and, consequently, was subject to persecution and merciless extermination. The doubting Little Man in the KGB lists is a wavering, unreliable, unfaithful, unsteady individual prone to betraying Soviet ideals. This makes him an enemy of the working people, of the state, of workers and peasants on the road to building communism. The replacement of the “!” with a “?” is a provocation that dismantles that which was previously accepted as immutable truth. It is an artistic act of cleansing perception of established ideological norms and taboos. The replacement of “!” with “?” deconstructs the meaning of the propagandistic “formula.” The latter undergoes changes that allow us to speak of its incorrectness as well as of a rigid method of instilling false tautological “proofs” and “mantras” in the consciousness of the masses. To instill doubt and criticism—first in oneself, then in others—is a form of struggle against totalitarian and authoritarian systems. The correlation between lies and truth begins with doubt.

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melomid’s Sotsart and my Socialist Modernism (Sotsmodernism), formulated in the late 1970s, bring together skepticism, sarcasm, and irony that push the limits of normative Soviet art and its clichés in the production of Soviet illusions. Sotsmodernism aims to overcome the fetters of Soviet ideology in art. This is a Soviet art movement that has adopted Western artistic languages and techniques, as well as the languages of the Russian avant-garde of the beginning of the century, in conjunction with socialist realism. It does not negate the tradition of socialist realism, but by rearranging the accents, it changes the context of its ideological component and removes its basis, the communist ideology.

Socialist Modernism is the final phase of the development of Socialist Realism in the form of its opposite and represents the possibility of continuing the history of Soviet art.

Collage series: ArtChaeology of the USSR. Sociolite. Artist’s book, pen, walnut ink, 1976-1982

Central Asian art today continues the classical traditions of socialist realism, but with a significant share of modernism and nationalism. What do you think of the relevance/demand for Central Asian art? Has it become more demand-driven/responsive to current issues and what follows from that?

The traditions of Soviet art prevail in Central Asian republics. For example, the aesthetic of artistic life in Uzbekistan is a deliberate rejection of any innovations and, consequently, a lack of knowledge other than that generated by the ideological nature of the Soviet system. At first glance, Soviet totalitarianism is consigned to oblivion, but in fact, for the three decades since independence—through the efforts of Uzbekistan’s leaders, who are former Soviet functionaries—the “new autocratic” has taken root.

The lack of will to know is manifested in the caution shown by artists, art historians, and viewers/audiences, which can also be explained by the fear inherent in countries with unrestricted supreme power. There is a reluctance to be involved in the historical events taking place, a detachment from all problems. This personal cautious stance, which envisages detachment from political events—hence from the processes in contemporary art and the introduction into the artistic life of Uzbekistan of new, progressive tendencies, which are not always pleasant for the authorities, as long as they apply to critical discourses—results in a depressing neutrality on the part of artists, art critics, teachers of art colleges/institutions in the country, and viewers/audiences. These groups for many years considered themselves advanced in their understanding of art and capable of influencing the country’s cultural and artistic development—but this is a myth. In general, Uzbekistan’s artists have not proven themselves in any way and are (at best) obsessed with the Faustian thirst for immortality—that is, they desire to secure their place in the history of the art of the republic through official recognition by the authorities.

The extremely low level of reflection among artists, art historians, and viewers/audience is occasioned by many factors. First is the lack of innovations in the national/regional art field, which have led to a reduction in the mental sphere that makes original, individual interpretations impossible. This makes it easy to identify and mark what is visible, familiar, and therefore devoid of reflection. The ability to draw a boundary line between reflexive and non-reflexive is blurred by artistic monotony, which in turn leads to the impossibility of separating new works from previous ones—everything looks familiar, repetitive, ordinary. The only difference from the Soviet period is the saturation of works with emphasized national ornamentation. Ethno-style (there is no other way to describe such artistic production) is at its core Soviet-style work where the characters are dressed in national clothes. There is also increased attention to historical themes, with the glorification of historical heroes in military battles, often in service of the nationalist impulse of “re-writing history,” as with colorful illustrations of the “academic works” of pro-government official historiographers. Low-quality products are created and shown with such intensity and pressure that the viewer ceases to reflect even on original things. As a result, at exhibitions we see only mirroring of already reflected reflections, the desire of sculptors and artists for embellishment, for sparkling trinkets.

It should be noted that, first of all, art educators deny the role of renewal in art, causing young artists to think about the inferiority and even uselessness of contemporary art movements with their conformist positions. Artist-educators and art historians, with their outdated viewpoints and their practice of denying the absence of stable meanings in contemporary art, become the carriers of the lack of common meanings, methods, and motivations. Their conceptual apparatus, in turn, struggles to master new knowledge—the realization that today, as yesterday, the system of narrow specialization, characteristic of the outdated educational system, is becoming burdensome under conditions in which the needs and changes of contemporary consciousness are focused on the accelerating speed of time and a different view, where the traditional understanding of space, together with time, no longer exists against the background of a new multimedia world with intersecting universal links; that our narrowly specialized art world is unable to respond to today’s challenges, including the opening-up of the possibilities of digital space, with its new social technologies, forms, and types of artistic labor and creativity. And this speaks to the impossibility of forming new subjectivities within our dysfunctional educational system and outdated views on the essence of culture/art.

Today, contemporary art in Central Asia is trying, with varying degrees of success, to integrate itself into global trends. So far it is a small group. But we have brilliant artists who have shaped contemporary art in our region, who have created original contexts and their own perspectives on contemporary art discourse. They are, first of all, Kazakhstani artists and art critics Rustam Khalfin and his spouse Lidia Blinova, founders and patriarchs of the Almaty scene; and artists of the next generation Sergei Maslov, Yerbolsyn Meldibekov, Viktor and Elena Vorobyev, Kanat Ibragimov, the Red Tractor group (in particular Vitaly Simakov, Moldakul Narymbekov, and Said Atabekov from Chimkent), Zitta Sultanbayeva and Ablikim Akmullayev, Alexander Ugai, Julia Sorokina, and Valeria Ibraeva. From Kyrgyzstan we have Shailoo Dzhekshenbaev, Alimzhan Jorobaev, Murat Dzhumaliev, Gulnara Kasmalieva, Valery Ruppel, Ulan Dzhparov, and art critic Gamal Bokombaev. Interesting figures have also recently appeared in Uzbekistan: the artist Saodat Ismailova and the photographers Umida Akhmedova and Oleg and Timur Karpov.

What about your art plans? What do you think you should do or what would you advise philanthropists to do to support the arts in Central Asia?

To be honest, I don’t think about my plans. I am 74 years old and I continue to work every day as before—at least four or five hours, so that there is no feeling of being guilty of wasting time. But I often get carried away if a new idea comes up and I need to fix it. Then my working day can last from early morning to evening. Sometimes routine work, if we mean putting in order a personal archive of more than 3,000 works. If I receive an invitation to participate in an exhibition, I do not refuse. But usually I’m a recluse. I don’t leave the studio for months. I ordered classic icon boards made of linden and oak, 79.5×79.5 cm—the size of Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square. Made and delivered. The studio smells of freshly cut wood. It remains to apply the canvas and primer. The icons will be apocryphal, with text. That is, instead of the canonical image, there will be a text in the old church font: “Do not make yourself an idol, and no image.” Black and red.

I have never met philanthropists in Uzbekistan in my lifetime. They say they are in Kazakhstan. If there was an opportunity, I would be happy to organize and build the first Museum of Contemporary Arts in Uzbekistan. Or at least try to collect artworks by Central Asian artists for the future museum. To support art in Central Asia, I advise philanthropists to financially support the projects of young promising artists and their promotion on the international stage, as well as invest in the opening of private, state-independent institutes of contemporary art with appropriate departments and training programs.

While working in the archives of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, I came across an interesting document. It was a list of the tools of Tarifbai Tillyabayev, a zargar (jeweler) from Samarkand who worked in the mid-20^th century. The tools were purchased in November 1948 and compiled by the legendary ethnographer Olga Sukhareva. According to the list, the tools—among which there were such instruments as otashgirak (tongs), gaichi zargari (jeweler scissors), and tustak (tweezers)—belonged to the Samarkand Museum. I wrote a request to the museum, although frankly speaking, I had no expectation of finding anything; after all, a lot of time had passed since then. Imagine, then, my surprise when I found out that the instruments mentioned on the list are still part of the collection of the Samarkand Museum. It was even more surprising to learn that contemporary jewelers from Central Asia use tools almost identical to those that were in use almost a century ago. Moreover, they create silver ornaments similar to those that existed in the 19th century, crafting them on the basis of photographs or rare surviving masterpieces. This process weaves the rich traditions of the past into the everyday present.

Author

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By Snejana Atanova

Snezhana Atanova is a research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Science (Moscow), associated researcher at the French Institute for Central Asian Studies (IFEAC). She researches material culture and cultural heritage of Central Asia with reference to anthropology, archaeology, and history.

Past

In Turkestan, jewelry production was mainly concentrated in the cities of Andijan, Bukhara, Karshi, Kokand, Samarkand, Tashkent, Shakhrisyabz, Urgench, and Khiva. There were also specialized kishlaks of zargars, such as Zargarlik near Jizzak (Fahretdinova 1983, 71). In the Transcaspian area, jewelers were present not only in the city of Merv, but also in every large Turkmen village. The best works of embossing, filigree, openwork carving, cloisonné, and turquoise-encrusting were made in Bukhara. Kokand was famous for its niello and enamels. The peculiarity of the jewelry art of Samarkand masters consists in the use of the openwork filigree technique. Urgench, Merv, and Khiva are known for massive cast decorations, such as the bracelets without closures (bilesik) that adorned Turkmen women. Among the ranks of jewelers were not only Tajiks, Turkmens, and Uzbeks, but also Jewish masters, Persians, Lyuli Gypsies, Indians, and Dagestani-Laks. It is believed that the latter brought a new jewelry technique, niello, to Turkestan.

From the second half of the 19th century, not only new techniques, but also new shapes began to appear. Local jewelers mastered the production of so-called European jewelry. Accompanied by the penetration of European/Russian fabrics, accessories, clothing styles, and even food, this was an inevitable process that intensified with the annexation of Turkestan to the Russian Empire, when Russian settlers—among whom were masters of applied crafts and representatives of Russian trading houses and factories—arrived in the region. The manufacture of “European jewelry” indicates, among other things, that there was a fashion for European items in Turkestan in the 19th century, just as there was a fashion for Central Asian ones in Russia and for Oriental ones more broadly in European countries. In the eyes of the inhabitants of the Orient, Europe was as much enshrouded in a veil of exoticism as the Orient was for attendees at elegant balls in Paris in the 18th century (see Photos 1 and 2).

Most of the jewelry produced in Turkestan was made of silver, although gold was also widely used in Bukhara from the end of the 19th century. During that period, bars of gold and silver were brought from Russia; silver was also imported from China. But bullion of precious metals was a luxury; more often, the basis was an alloy of Chinese, Russian, and Persian coins. Among other precious materials, carnelian and coral were imported from India and Europe, turquoise from Khorasan, and pearls mainly from Europe, while glass beads were both local and European in origin.

To become a master jeweler in Turkestan in the 19th century, one had to either be born into a jeweler’s family or apprentice to a recognized jeweler. The second route was especially difficult. Jewelers were not interested in transferring their professional secrets to outsiders, so the apprenticeship period could be long. The apprentice was not taught, but only allowed to look closely at what the teacher was doing; the latter usually deliberately kept the secrets of craftsmanship to themselves. After about 4-5 years, a master had a well-trained apprentice who worked for his teacher for another 5-10 years for free before being initiated into the profession. Among Bukhara zargars, initiation was obligatory: it was considered that the absence of his teacher’s blessing would lead to failure in an apprentice’s work (Sukhareva 1962: 52).

Present

In contemporary Central Asia, the art of jewelry is far from forgotten. Across the region, jewelers create beautiful works of art that call to mind the masterpieces produced in the century before last. Here are some notable jewelers from the region.

Suhrob Akhrarov (Samarkand, Uzbekistan) trained as a jeweler at the artisanal lyceum in Tashkent. He is 52 years old, but he enrolled in the lyceum when he was 24, which means that he has been in the profession for almost 30 years. He has vast experience and has mastered many jewelry techniques. Suhrob specializes in making jewelry on the model of antique items and is also engaged in the restoration of such items. For example, they recently brought him an antique earring and the master is working on making a similar one (see Photo 3). Another example of his craft is a magnificent tilla-kosh (headpiece) (see Photo 4) made by the jeweler on an old model. This type of jewelry is still popular in Samarkand, where it is bought for brides. This zargar buys his tools in a specialized store and makes kolyb (stamps) himself on the model of antique ones (see Photo 5). Customers bring him their own gold, silver, and precious stones; the jeweler also remelts “ancient coins, spoons, and everything he comes across.” The jeweler makes glass beads himself.

Shavkat Khatamov (Bukhara, Uzbekistan) did not grow up in a family of jewelers; his father was a carpenter. When he was 25, he went to learn jewelry-making from a Daghestani Lak ethnic craftsman who subsequently emigrated to Israel. Shavkat learned a lot from his teacher and himself later taught his son jewelry craftsmanship. Among the jewelry created by Shavkat are modern “European” styles as well as those that reproduce the jewelry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries from old photographs (see Photos 6 and 7). “I’m passionate about recreating old masterpieces,” Shavkat says. Among his tools are rare old kolyb (stamps) and others he has made himself. Today, kolyb made in Afghanistan are brought to Central Asia, but they are expensive and lack “clarity of ornamentation and pattern.” The master makes his kolyb from bronze and steel; making a bronze kolyb is a complicated process (see Photo 8). Shavkat Khatamov’s work can be seen on his Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/shavkatkhatamov/).

Serzhan Bashirov (Nursultan, Kazakhstan) comes from the East Kazakhstan region. There were no jewelers in his family, although his grandmother was famous for her skill at making traditional Kazakh headgear and fur coats from fox and wolf skins. Serzhan studied artistic metalwork at the Almaty Art School in the 1980s, and later learned sculpture at the Almaty Theater and Art Institute. The jeweler’s jewelry installations struck a chord with me when I met him in 2019 at an exhibition of Kazakh artisans in Washington, DC. Preferring to work with silver, carnelian, and turquoise, Serzhan combines “native” materials and the techniques of the masters of bygone centuries into new forms (see Photos 11 and 12). In this process, he deploys a number of what he calls “folk techniques”—notching, forging, riveting, etc.—as well as more sophisticated approaches like scanning, enamel, and grain. As the jeweler points out, kapsyrma / kaptyrma (silver clasps with hook and loop) and shashpau / sholpa (ornaments for braids) from the last century are now made extremely rarely and exclusively to order. However, even in the 19th century, when these ornaments were popular, they were made mainly to order (although in the first half of the 20th century, craftsmen began to sell their products in the bazaar). Sadly, the jewelry that richly decorated Kazakhs in earlier times has ceased to be a part of everyday life and is now confined mainly to museum collections (see Photo 13). Serzhan Bashirov’s Instagram page is https://www.instagram.com/serzhankz/?hl=ru.

Zhakshylyk Chentemirov (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) is originally from Issykul region. There were no jewelers in his family, though his father was a talented woodcarver. Zhakshylyk always loved to draw, so after school he entered an art school in Bishkek. Since then, he has lived and worked in Bishkek. The jeweler works mainly with silver, turquoise, coral, pearls, wood, and bone. All materials can be bought in a specialized store; some customers bring their own stones and precious metals. Sometimes customers ask to melt their jewelry down into new pieces, although the old jewelry usually has extremely low silver content. Zhakshylyk has experience making antique jewelry such as earrings, pendants, etc., but does not hide the fact that it is not easy to recreate such jewelry, which is done with the aid of photos. As Zhakshylyk does not like to copy others’ works and prefers to create his own masterpieces (see Photos 14 and 15), his jewelry works, which are very popular among tourists and locals, differ from traditional forms and feature new designs. That being said, the jeweler uses old jewelry techniques that existed in the region. Among the techniques that he “does not use much” are grains and filigree: significantly, the jewelers of Northern Kyrgyzstan never liked the latter, whereas it was widespread in the South. A curious series of his jewelry for weddings is called “Kyzga Sep” (bride’s dowry) (see Photo 16). This kind of jewelry, while not reproducing the traditional forms, supports one of the traditional wedding rituals: a dowry. More of Zhakshylyk’s jewelry can be seen on his Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/chentemirovzhakshylyk/?hl=en.

A very honorable profession among Turkmens, jeweler was traditionally considered a man’s profession. In modern Turkmenistan, women are also becoming jewelers. Ogulgerek Myradova (Ashgabat, Turkmenistan) trained as a jeweler at the State Academy of Fine Arts of Turkmenistan in Ashgabat. After graduating from the Academy, Ogulgerek continued her work there; she is also a member of the Union of Artists of Turkmenistan. There were no jewelers in her family, but her father is Mukhammet Yazyev, a famous Turkmen artist. Ogulgerek creates jewelry together with her husband, Shohrat Myradov, a fellow graduate of the State Academy of Fine Arts. Both jewelers create fantasy jewelry based on their own sketches (see Photo 17), but most of all, they are fascinated with creating Turkmen jewelry “in the national style.” Ogulgerek and Shohrat explore old masterpieces through printed and visual sources, as well as by looking at antique jewelry in Turkmen museums (see Photo 18). They prefer silver (traditionally a thin layer of gold is applied to the silver pattern), carnelian, turquoise, zirconia, chrysoprase, chrysolite, and black agate. They have mastered the traditional Turkmen jewelry techniques of past centuries, but also develop new ones: for example, engraving and stamping were historically widely used by Turkmen jewelers, while filigree was less common. Both jewelers use engraving and stamping for traditional jewelry, while filigree is widely used in modern-type jewelry. “It was impossible to imagine a Turkmen woman or girl dressed in the national costume without silver jewelry,” reported Soviet ethnographer Galina Vasil’eva in 1973 (90-98) (see Photo 19). In 2021, Turkmen women, like women from other Central Asian countries, continue to wear traditional jewelry.

This review does not include the jewelry art and masterpieces of Karakalpaks, Uighurs, Arabs, Jews, and other ethnic groups from Central Asia. Yet even this short overview demonstrates several important points.

Changes in jewelry production are constantly occurring due to social, political and economic changes, even if traditional forms remain comparatively stable. Artisans are interested in creating a new type of jewelry; clients/customers from Central Asia support this with continued demand for jewelry of modern design. Some vintage jewelry forms are already disappearing, but not everywhere. In Turkmenistan, one can find an abundance of jewelry that is similar in form and design to that of earlier centuries. Such jewelry masterpieces are especially obligatory for a bride: silver ornaments make the bride’s costume at once physically heavy and solemn. The preserved tilla-kosh and jewelry sets included in kyzga sep (dowry) reveal that some traditional forms (or their echoes) have been preserved not only in Turkmenistan, but also in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Thus, wedding traditions seem to protect Central Asian jewelry from extinction.

Just as it was centuries ago, today’s Central Asian jewelry is diverse, with the jewelry of Kyrgyz masters differing from that of their Turkmen and Uzbek counterparts, although the contemporary jewelry of Kazakh and Kyrgyz masters may overlap. Local differences are now significantly blurred, but some jewelry techniques continue to be preserved and developed where they were practiced before. Further research into the jewelry art of the region would be valuable.

Bibliography:

Fahretdinova Deliara. Iuvelirnoe iskusstvo Uzbekistana. Tashkent, 1983.

Sukhareva, Ol’ga. Pozdnefeodal’nyj gorod Bukhara. Tashkent, 1962.

Vasil’eva, Galina. “Turkmenskie zhenskie ukrasheniia.” Sovetskaiia Ethnografiia 3 (1973): 90-98.

The author would like to thank every jeweler who kindly agreed to be interviewed and talk about their jewelry art and practices.

In this essay, artist Alexander Barkovsky writes about his comfort zone, his attempts to escape it, and the reasons why he ultimately had to return to it.

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An artist must deceive everyone for the sake of his path—this is a struggle, but first the artist must find his own way, and this path should start from the heart, or else the artist will only deceive himself all his life, and this is a false and destructive path. We live in a world of deception; art itself is a deception, so an artist must learn from childhood to deceive everyone, everyone but himself. An artist can only deceive himself when everything is going very badly, when everyone has turned away from him, when there is no money, no women, nothing to eat, paintings are not selling… At this moment an artist can deceive himself, quietly whispering to himself, “Everything will be fine!”

Author

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Alexander Barkovsky

Alexander Alexandrovich Barkovsky (born in 1979) is an artist from Uzbekistan who paints and makes photo collages. He is a participant in many prestigious exhibitions, namely Moscow Youth Biennale, Sotheby’s, Art Dubai, Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, etc.

Facebook page where Barkovsky publishes his comics – https://www.facebook.com/Artisis-2198758660377787, photo collages, and art – https://www.facebook.com/photokollaj

Artist’s Youtube channel and a personal website dedicated to the research of Central Asian Roma people

Series “Place on Earth”, 2013. Offset printing, paper, watercolor, gouache.

My name is Alexander Barkovsky, I live and work in Uzbekistan, and I am an artist.

I am 42 years old and by this age I have realized several very important things. I know where in my neighborhood to buy the most delicious pilaf cooked on a wood fire, and not on gas, as is now commonplace. I give 15,000 Uzbek soms and in return, I get a serving of the best pilaf, achuchuk salad (salad with sliced fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions), a quarter of lepyoshka (bread), and tea. Sometimes the cook adds more carrots and kishmish (raisins) for me; he knows what I love. In general, I think that in order to protect the national idea from encroachment by Western brands such as Burger King or KFC, it is necessary to write in the Uzbek constitution that according to the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, every citizen of the Republic of Uzbekistan has the right to one portion of pilaf, tea, lepyoshka, and achuchuk salad.

I also know where they sell the best samsas, with the finest dough, tender juicy beef, and real lamb fat, instead of internal fat, which instantly hardens and turns white as wax. This samsa does not even burn in the tandoor, so its base does not need to be rubbed on a metal grater to peel off the burnt dough. And the Uzbek samsa absolutely should be included on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.

And if you walk to the Kadyshev bazaar, then inside the bazaar you can find a very small cafe where they make amazing shashlik. The liver (dzhigar) is especially great there, but you should always specify whether you would like it roasted or with blood. Personally, I prefer it with blood because the shashlichnik (the cook who prepares the shashlik) buys the meat from a butcher two meters away who immediately cuts the carcass into pieces. To wash down a shashlik with green tea No. 95 with delicious orange Uzbek lemon and sugar is a special pleasure. You can ask for anything from the bazaar and the waitress Shoira-hon will immediately bring it for you. I usually order three different skewers of shashlik, liver with blood, balls—this is when ground beef filling is rolled into a small ball and subsequently wrapped in a thin layer of strips of lamb fat. The fat is fried on the grill and transparent drops flow onto the sliced onion rings. Mutton is not always soft, so you need to check with the shashlichnik if the lamb is soft today. Generally, Uzbekistan is a country of specificity and the creation of very subtle connections. You pass by some person and if he sells something, he will tell you: “Oh! Brother, I haven’t seen you in a long time, you’ve probably had a lot of work? What do you want today?” and there you are already standing and thinking about what you’d like today, and he already has a full bag on the scale and you only have time to clarify—“Fresh?” Of course, everything is always fresh, juicy, and tender, there are no clear equivalents anywhere, top class, original and solid chocolate, meat chocolate, persimmon chocolate, and even chocolate-chocolate, and if you don’t believe it—“Try it! Brother, take the liver! Chocolate liver! The liver is like a girl today! Brother! Buy cheese! The cheese is generally very delicious, unique, as if we didn’t make it!”

Also, Uzbekistan has the worst vodka in the world, and its seller is like an oracle—a shaman, on whose advice your life depends, will you wake up tomorrow and who will wake you… Typically, I buy cognac made by Uzbekvino—it is called “Uzbekistan.” One day I went into a store called ALKO-MIR and asked the seller, “Brother, is there Uzbekistan?!” The seller replied “No, there is no Uzbekistan!” I turned around and began to leave, but he caught up with me with the words: “Brother! Brother, I’m sorry, Brother! Uzbekistan is there! There is Uzbekistan!!! There is no cognac ‘Uzbekistan’…”

Series “Gypsy Madonnas”? 2010. Lithographic printing, paper, watercolor, tempera.

So, I am an artist and over the past seven years I have had two solo exhibitions in Uzbekistan. The first was at the airport before the pandemic, when I flew to Dubai on the invitation of a gallery. At the airport, the customs officer—an SNB officer (an employee of the former KGB)—asked me to pay an additional fee for the paintings (in Uzbekistan, there is a law that after three months, you pay a fee for an examination of your paintings and you are given a certificate to show that you are actually the author of these works, but this certificate is only valid for three months. Then you need to pay again for the same paintings, so that experts will again confirm your authorship of the same works).

I think this is a very original system. I came across similar schemes when as a child, near school, I was met by bullies and told that it was necessary to save some kind of district authority, which was held by the cops, and they needed just 10 kopecks more, which was conveniently the amount of money that my mother gave me so that I could buy myself a bun and tea for lunch. At the airport, when I was passing through customs control, I was stopped by an employee of the SNB (former KGB) with the question “What’s in the box?” I said paintings, he asked for the permission to export, but it was not there and he ordered me to open the box. I opened it and began to put all the paintings on the floor, and it turned out to be a personal exhibition at the airport, where the SNB was the curator and the other passengers were the audience. The SNB looked at all the paintings, was silent and twirled a cigarette in his hand, then turned to me and asked for a light. I took out a lighter, held it to his cigarette, and struck the flint with my finger, but it didn’t light, and it didn’t light again, and it didn’t light again. The SNB officer figured out what was happening and said to me, “If it lights now, I’ll let you pass with your picture! But if it doesn’t light up, we’ll confiscate everything as contraband, don’t you agree?” “Yes, I agree!”

My next solo exhibition took place in Uzbekistan only two years after the airport exhibition, and it was an exhibition on the presidential highway (this was the pinnacle of my artistic career). It happened by accident. Due to the lack of space in my studio, I decided to move some paintings to my mother’s apartment, in the Hospital Market area along the Presidential highway (this is the name of the asphalt along which the president periodically passes during the day). I carried my work in a large black folder (it’s a special folder for artists to carry paper), and well, it turned out that I was walking on the sidewalk to my mother with a folder on my shoulder along the most beautiful road in Uzbekistan just an hour before the most important person in Uzbekistan was supposed to drive on it. On the sidewalk, every 10 meters, there was a beautiful policeman, each of whom asked—and many of whom even demanded—that I stop (which was especially nice, because it’s not every day that you meet such surprisingly greedy citizens interested in art. It was then that I noticed that the deepest, most curious, and most eagerly interested audience of the artist is customs employees, the prosecutor’s office, and the police). On that day, my work was examined by about 50 policemen. When I asked what they liked the most, the answer was largely that they liked the folder.

Series of graphic works “Gracious Jihad”, 2016. Paper, watercolors. Co-authored with Sergei Yurtaykin and Alexander Nikitin.

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Today, if you are a little-known non-conformist artist living in Uzbekistan, and you are about 40-70 years old, then most likely, with a 99% probability, you will die in oblivion, and your works will end up either at a flea market or immediately in the trash. Unfortunately, the Savitsky museum died together with Savitsky and now no one in Uzbekistan engages in searching for little-known good artists and buying their works from them. Now is the era of corporations, institutions, and state propaganda ideologies. They have very successfully occupied the place formerly held by the church and the wealthy royal clans. The birth of hipsters and TikTokers is just a reflection of the state of modern cultural processes. People don’t go to exhibitions; people go to brands. Goethe-Institut is a brand, British Council is a brand, Imperial Academy of Arts is one and the same. Brands do not form a cultural environment; brands form an “electorate” located in a “global discourse” in which you are taught what to look at and how. The artist in this discourse, like exhibitions, is formal and secondary, necessary only for decoration, for general content. If I hold an exhibition of a genius non-conformist artist in their yard and exhibit their “art-bru” or abstractions, then a local police officer will come and shut down the exhibition and no blogger will write about it, unless the artist opens his veins as a political activist or is stabbed by religious radicals. Maybe I should write “exhibition” in quotation marks, because no one needs exhibitions now, but only content that is promoted by corporations and institutions: feminism, LGBT, social projects, global warming. If these projects are promoted by Western foundations, then they are interdisciplinary projects about tolerance and the global environmental, political and humanitarian crises, migration or gender issues; if these projects form local pro-state institutions, then the projects are associated with the revival of national ideas, eternal values, the cultural heritage of ancestors, and traditional handicrafts. Now if you ask anyone—everyone makes projects, just no one draws on paper anymore. So where should a non-conformist artist go today, when his comfort zone in his small room is no longer cool and artistic, when the non-conformist artist has ceased to be a romantic and competitive figure, when the artist is only interdisciplinary, only institutional, only a brand and you will not prove anything to anyone, they will stupidly bypass you at the reception, moving any potential interest away from you? No grants for you, no halls, no patrons; as Solzhenitsyn wrote—“Do not believe, do not be afraid, do not ask! Regardless, they won’t agree!” And what remains today for a non-conformist artist who stands between the eternal choice: “bite or lick?” The non-conformist artist today needs to become flexible and do both, but only as controlled absurdity: it’s most important to stay in his comfort zone, where he can bite the air and lick the wounds to the heart, dying of self-pity; it’s most important to continue to act steadfastly, no matter what. An artist should not focus on career and professional growth; an artist should focus only on art, and the only growth for an artist is spiritual growth, and the only path for an artist is liberation and immortality.

Series of photo collages based on old Uzbek prewar and postwar photographs. “Tales of Power”, 2012.

The Internet today can help the artist immensely, both to obtain necessary information and to communicate with other artists. An artist can organize for himself, not just virtually, but through any medium that he likes, write texts, speak at Zoom conferences, upload his video art to YouTube, sell paintings, participate in online auctions, and much more. Another problem, in addition to hipsters and TikTokers, is bots, which we now need to somehow adapt to; they will dislike your content on YouTube, and the bots will remove all your video art as extremist, then the bots will see your comments as violating the rules of the bot community and the bots will disable you from participating and being able to publish, but they will never disable you from advertising. Currently, many non-conformist artists hide from bots in secret chats on Telegram, but this will not last long: Usmanov bought “contact” from Durov, sooner or later corporations will completely control our dependencies with the help of robots. Therefore, the first thing we should do is quit smoking, well, and gradually overcome our addictions. The second thing is to learn how to plant tomatoes and bake bread yourself, and not go to the supermarket for it, because since the pandemic, it has become clear that all this postmodernism—with all the Foucaults, Guattaris, Deleuzes and Baudrillards—will not save you, but nature will save you and knowledge will save you, not philosophy. May strength be with us!

I am an artist and I live in a schizophrenic world, in which the norm is to have an army and maintain a militia, and I, as an artist, must decide for myself, while defining my path in art, whether art can be apolitical or not. I sometimes take a taxi in Tashkent, and the taxi drivers are mostly former military or police officers who retire at age 45-50, very talkative people. During the trip, they are very interested in your life, as civilians, not according to protocol. They eagerly listen to everything that you tell them.

Taxi driver: Bro, tell me the truth, honestly! The black square is screwed up or a normal picture?!

– Yes, you’re a rational man, of course it’s screwed up!

Taxi driver: Brother, excuse me, can I ask you something? I see that you’re an artist, so why don’t you leave Uzbekistan, then???

–

Taxi driver: Brother, what do you do in your life?

– I’m an artist! An artist?

– Brother, can you draw on my house, on my wall, on the great hall, how a camel goes through the desert?

I ask them: “Don’t you know anything about life?” They say: “No, man, we did not live at all, we got up at five in the morning and went to the training ground with a machine gun, so all my life I ran around the barracks on orders…” And now the state supports such a person, feeds him, the time comes, and he starts a family, has children, because he is looking for meaning in his meaningless life. He will be given an apartment, and then a pension. At the same time, I am a partisan in this war—a pirate without a homeland, without a family, without state titles and awards, a pirate and an eternal wanderer in search of the beautiful and elusive. I was thinking, what if we lived in a different world, like this, you meet a person on the street and say to him, “I heard that Navalny is dying in prison, and Putin built a palace for himself for a billion?” And the person responds, “Navalny? Putin? Who’s that? I don’t know any of them, brother… since my childhood, I have spent all my time in the mountains and forests on sketches, and on installations, here, brother, such a thing, then one festival in the sand, then another on the sea, then ‘Burning Man’ in America, I need to prepare, I’ve been running through the biennale all my life, my whole life, brother, in the workshop and passed like one day, I didn’t even have time to have children, right now we are recording a new album on vinyl in the studio, so, sorry, I’ve got to go.”

All of us, if we don’t change this world, can at least imagine that it can be different, without the military, lawyers, police, bankers, and KGB.

PMC “WAGNER” “Russian World”, 2015. Gold embroidery on camouflage fabric, applique. Wooden icon cases.

***

In 2001, I experienced a severe psychological episode and realized that I could not stay in Tashkent for a day longer. To go to Moscow, I needed money. I met a concubine in a bar and she gave me an order for a painting: I had to paint her lover on canvas with oil paints (he was a Georgian named Dito, about sixty years old). It was necessary to include many different features of his life in the picture: the fact that he was soaring in the clouds with her, cufflinks on his shirt, a cigar in his hand, a bottle of kefir in the other hand, just below the clouds, the players of his favorite club “Manchester” running on the soccer field, and on the side, in the upper right corner, the logo of his favorite TV channel, NTV. I drew all this and I did it very well. Angela (that was the name of the concubine) liked it and she paid me $100. This money was enough to buy a ticket, and there was still $20 left for my first trip to Moscow, or so I thought at the time (it was only enough for a taxi to get from the airport to the city). I collected all my paintings in a large cardboard box from under the refrigerator and flew to Moscow, where I lived for four years. The purpose of my trip to Moscow was to gain new knowledge in the field of contemporary art, which I could not do here in Uzbekistan.

In Moscow, I tried to get any job. I lived in a dorm in Stroganovka, on Alabyan Street, near the Sokol metro station; now Moscow City is there, it seems. And so every morning I woke up, ate a packet of Rolton, and came up with some super idea. One morning I came up with the idea that I absolutely needed to get a job as an artist at Mosfilm. “Brilliant,” I thought, and went to the Kievskaya metro station (I can hardly remember the name of the nearest metro station to Mosfilm, since it was 2001). I remember that from the metro, you still needed to take a trolleybus. I went to the entrance, but the guards did not allow me to enter the territory of Mosfilm and, pointing to the phone, told me to call the list that hung next to it. It was a list of all the studios that were located on the territory of Mosfilm. I began to call and say the same script: “Hello, I’m an artist, I want to work for you.” They all refused me and I decided that this was not a conversation that should be had over the telephone, so I needed to get inside somehow and have a personal conversation, and then I would definitely be successful and I would definitely be hired and my life would change. I went outside and strolled along the long fence, beyond which was a beautifully manicured lawn with trimmed grass. There were several men doing yoga on the lawn; there were no guards. I looked around: it seemed like no one was looking at me, so I decided to climb over the black cast-iron fence. I calculated all the movements: first, I threw my backpack, then one, two, three and I climbed over, picked up the backpack, and just had time to raise my head as these cute harmless hippies who were doing yoga on the lawn immediately pinned me down and dragged me to the basement. It turned out that this was Mosfilm security. In the basement, they put me on a chair and, quite naturally, like in an American movie, they fastened my hands behind me with handcuffs, but not fake ones. They started to interrogate me, and the first question they asked me was, “Are you a terrorist?” “Me? No! What makes you think that?” Then they began to rummage through my backpack and found my passport: “Uzbekistan? Are you Muslim?” “Yes, what does that have to do with anything?” “What are you doing here, why did you climb through the fence?!” I told them in general terms that I was an artist, that I wanted to work in Mosfilm, and I wanted to go through the studios and personally, so to speak, introduce myself, I have an album with photos of my work in my backpack…… and you tied me up so tightly and then put me in handcuffs. The guards continued their questioning: “Do you have anything to do with today’s events in America?” “With what events?” “Don’t pretend, tell me, are you connected or not?” “Yes, with what events, I have no idea, I live in a dorm, I don’t have a radio or TV there.” I was held for about two hours, fingerprinted, photographed in full face and in profile, then taken out through the entrance to the street and released. It was September 11, 2001.

Then I returned to Tashkent, to my comfort zone, and began to work a lot, experimenting with photography and video art. Then there was the first Sotheby’s in London and the first sale for a large sum of money, after which people older than me by 5 and 30 years began to tell me, upon buying pictures from me, “I hope that when you die, I can sell your work for millions…”

I felt that everything had changed around five years ago, when, at rock concerts in Tashkent, musicians began to complain to the guards about my behavior and my dancing. Тhis happened consistently—I was either taken out by the guards from the institution or the police—and I stopped going anywhere. My best friend is a shashlichnik in my neighborhood, and when I’m sad, I buy cognac “Uzbekistan” (not a country, just an alcoholic drink) and I take the train to the mountains, alone, to be in silence.

Translated by Leanna Kramer

Mamut Churlu is an artist who worked for years in Uzbekistan and Russia on researching folk art practices as well as creating his own art. As part of the mass return of Tatar repatriates to the Crimean Peninsula at the fall of the Soviet Union, he returned to Crimea, where he formed Crimean Style, a folk art project that promotes preservation and revival of traditional embroidery, weaving, ceramic, and ornamental practices.

Article first published at Lossi36 by Katherine Leung (republished with permission)

So much of Crimean Tatar art was lost in the Stalinist purges but a new generation of young artists devoted to preserving their culture is bringing it all back. New workshops with updated practices have sprung up all around Crimea. Education is key in reintroducing these practices back to the people. Hundreds have participated in Crimean Style’s workshops and are excited about an art form brimming with symbolism, cultural significance, and unabashed tradition. The significance strikes a different chord when it is so rooted in Crimean Tatar rites of passage and identity. Symbolism plays a big role in Crimean Tatar folk art. There are stories and meanings embedded into all Crimean Tatar artwork that have a special name – ornek.

Lossi 36 speaks to Mamut Churlu to discuss his work in the great revival project. We leave politics at the door and explore the beauty of Crimean Tatar artistry.

The Golden Age of Crimean Tatar art coincided with the peak of the Crimean Khanate prosperity from the mid 15th to 18th centuries. Then Crimean Tatar art and culture entered a period of self-isolation after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 1783. In contemporary times, ethnic groups have asserted their identity from the Russian monolithic narrative through art and preservation. Can you talk more about your involvement in the Crimean modern identity project?

Russian aristocrats and educated art consumers started to show interest in Crimean Tatar embroidery in the 19th century, influenced by Romantic art movements in Europe. Fascination with folk art arose at this time. By the end of the 19th century, many Russians had private collections. Beginning in the 20th century, orientalists and ethnographers collected Crimean Tartar art for museum collections. Large collections of Crimean Tatar embroidery can be found in museums in Russia and Berlin.

The process of Crimean Tatar embroidery usually took place in a traditional home. Household items were created as a tradition, usually for weddings and certain rites of passage. Typically, a bride brought up to four hundred hand-woven and hand-embroidered items to the groom’s house. The knowledge of this craft was passed down from their grandmothers and taught to girls in villages.

In 1928, The Academy of Art and Sciences in Moscow organized an exhibition of Crimean Tatar ornamental design, weaving, and embroidery. Many collectors flocked to this exhibition and a cooperative of over 350 craftswomen was formed by 1930, with the idea of creating modern textile products like tablecloths, napkins, and handkerchiefs intended to export to the European market. Around the same time, Crimean Tatar embroidery was presented at an Art and Industry exhibition in Paris and awarded a bronze medal.

We lost a lot when the indigenous people of Crimea were deported in 1944. Most of our folk culture and art was associated with the creation of household items. It wasn’t until a mass return in the 1990s were repatriates able to revive their lost craft. It’s not the sole work of myself, but the efforts of so many young artisans who are bringing this lost art back.

You returned to Crimea in 1989 after spending much time in Russia and Uzbekistan. This is something of a homecoming for you. Can you talk about how Crimean folklore was a part of your upbringing? How do diasporic Tatar communities see the Crimean peninsula?

Even before my return to my homeland in 1989, I created decorative textiles, painted, and worked as a researcher. I worked with museum collections, participated in ethnographic expeditions, spoke at conferences about Central Asian carpet weaving, and even published a study on ceramic toys from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. I worked as a curator, promoting Uzbek ceramics in exhibitions all around the Soviet world.

My painting style is brutalist in character at first. It was birthed as a reaction to political aggression and an ongoing information war against my people. In the mid-90s, I realized that persistent negativity would not uplift me or my people.

I realized it was important to partner up with international arts programs and organizations that were already working towards promoting traditional arts. In 1996, I created a school curriculum that successfully brought back Crimean Tatar kilim. (Kilim is a tapestry-woven textile made from sheep wool, dyed in roots, leaves, and flowers and many believe the decorations on a kilim have special powers to protect a house.)

At the same time, there were other ornamental master jewelers returning to the motherland and creating traditional filigree decorations. Embroidery workshops also sprung up around this time. I started holding workshops for youth and teaching art at schools. In 2004, I was invited to the Ukranian Union of Folk Masters and was able to organize the first-ever exhibition of contemporary decorative Crimean Tatar art in Kyev.

This exhibit was unlike any other. We exhibited ceramic plates and toys, traditional embroidery styles such as the gold thread stitch and double-sided embroidery technique, kilim, calligraphy, and tablecloths. From that moment on, I realized that showcasing the effort and artistry of Tatar art masters was a powerful weapon for promoting our culture at the international level. Education is key to fighting back in the misinformation war. What we needed was inside us this entire time.

I started Crimean Style, an organization that puts together free seven-day seminars to study ornek for use in both traditional and contemporary creative works. This promoted constant creative activity with countless amounts of shows in the largest cities in Ukraine. In over 15 years of Crimean Style’s existence, we’ve held more than thirty exhibitions.

To be completely honest, many people who support Crimean Tatar do so in a political vien. I urge people to see us for our culture and go deeper than politics.

In the 1990s, you participated in a program from the revival of Crimean Tatar Kilim (tapestry-woven carpet and rugs) to develop folk art. Can you talk about your experience there? What is important about developing something that is lost from genocide and other trials the Tatar culture has gone through? Are there new methods to replace old techniques of creating?

In restoring what was lost, it was important to transfer the experience from the old masters to younger artisans. One example is the revival of silver filament jewelry work.

One well-known artisan in filigree jewelry art is Ayder Asanov. Before deportation, Asanov and his father taught at a workshop that trained young master jewelers. Now elderly, Asanov returned to Crimea from Uzbekistan and we’ve worked with him again to bring back this lost art.

Another artisan we’ve worked with is Zuleikha Bekirova. She studied Crimean Tatar embroidery since the 1930s. When she returned, also elderly, we worked with her to preserve and train a new generation of craftswomen in authentic traditional embroidery.

For these two practices – we’ve managed to keep the same traditional practice as pre-deportation. However, the revival project proved much more difficult with copper utensil production. There were no masters left who we could learn from. Crimean Style coppersmiths had to study old samples and reimagine what copper technology existed prior to the purges, without teachers.

Some craftsmen use modern metal welding technology and contemporary tools. We’ve used some of the same designs, but we also have adapted our ornamental heritage to the conditions of modern life.

As with copper dishes, we were able to almost entirely recreate the same dishes produced in the 19th century. We could make plaster molds using the slip casting technique. This practice is followed by engraving, firint, and covering with colored coating enamels for a second firing. The old dishes in Crimean Tatar households were simple and covered in glaze. Absolutely nothing has changed about this practice.

Chatyr Dag (named after a mountain in Crimea) is an organization that you started, that brings together fresh new talent. What message do you hope young Tatar artists take away? What is your message for people worldwide, who may reduce Turkic art to a monolithic category of simply rugs and traditional Islamic dress?

Chatyr Dag is more than just a mountain – it’s a symbol of our common home in Crimea. The peaks of Chatyr Dag can be seen from all parts of the peninsula. Another thing the mountains symbolize is the self-efficacy of the Crimean Tatar people. My organization, Chatyr Dag, has not received a penny of financial support from the Ukrainian or Russian government in its fifteen years of existence. All our activities have been financed by sponsors and donor funds. We rely on volunteer work.

In my opinion, Crimean Tatar art and the message that is embodied in our art is considered the property of the world. Our artwork is the world’s art. We bring together masters of various nationalities who have found their vocations, professions, and endless love in the ancient culture of the indigenous people of Crimea. Our art didn’t start in the 19th century. There are precursors of Crimean art in Neolithic times, long before the concept of states and nations were ever created. Our art has influenced the artwork of ancient Greeks, Scythian Turk, Byzantium, Ottoman, and even art of the Islamic world.

Our art practices are rooted in an authentic feminism found in Tatar women for over a millenia. Women began creating this work and passed it down to their daughters. Our values of a strong family, rites surrounding birth, and protection for our people are all found in our artwork. And truthfully, all of that is fundamental to everything in humanity. Our values are found in all religions and in the laws of all modern states.

All artworks in the article are for sale. Contact Mamut Churlu (chatirdag@rambler.ru) for sales inquiries.

The history of modern Tajik art history rarely mentions the existence of a naive trend in the country’s fine arts.

However, in her introduction to the publication Essays on the Artists of Tajikistan, one of the most famous art historians of Tajikistan, the late Lutfiya Aini (1934–2015)—the youngest daughter of the founder of Soviet Tajik literature and prominent public figure Sadriddin Aini (1878–1954)—casually mentions the work of painter A. Kamelin displayed at a 1961 exhibition of Tajik fine arts, writing that “his works combine the academic solution of composition in a painting, understood as an expanded three-dimensional space of stage action …. with a touch of primitivism as a style, as an immediacy of world perception.”

Despite the official statement that naive artists are not prevalent in the country, they still exist. The objective of this work is to define naivety in the visual arts of Tajikistan as a form of self-expression by artists with a high level of artistic education.

Almost all Tajik artists of the Soviet period were educated in the key art universities of the former Soviet Union: Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Vilnius, etc. Since then, all active visual artists have been educated at the National Art University named after Mirzo Tursunzade. Despite their premier education, they consciously use primitivistic approaches in their artistry. This may be considered inevitable in the sense that the social order forces artists to apply naivety in their work in order to indicate their reflection on reality and document the current state of society.

Author

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Lolisanam Ulugova, pictured with visual artist Murod Sharifov’s (b. 1984) canvases “Cow,” 110х110, c/o, 2010. and “Bull,” 110х110, c/o, 2010

Lolisanam Ulugova

Lolisanam has been an art manager in Tajikistan since 2000. She has contributed to writing and producing the nation’s first 3-D animation film, a short designed to promote awareness of environmental issues among children. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Turin, Italy and an undergraduate degree in Russian Language and Literature. She was a Global Cultural Fellow at the Institute for International Cultural Relations at the University of Edinburgh and participated in the Central Asian-Azerbaijan (CAAFP) fellowship program at the George Washington University at Elliott School of International Affairs for Fall 2019.

Preface

Art critic Rauf Muradov (1939–2015), in his preface to the album of the visual arts of Tajikistan, writes that “After the Arab invasion, rock paintings, monumental murals of Penjikent, Shahristane and Ajinateppe historic sites gradually began to disappear and subsequently almost completely ceased to exist. This was due to the spread of Islam, in particular its denial of the possibility of perceiving a deity in the form of a visual image, which served as the basis for the persecution of idolatry and icon painting. Later, zealous adherents of Islam extended this ban to depictions of people and animals.”

In spite of these prohibitions, the creative energy of people cannot be stopped, so all thoughts or reflections on reality have turned into ornaments of decorative art that metaphorically describe the life around them.

Nature remains the main theme of visual art. Muradov mentions “the special passion of artists for depicting nature, the multifaceted use of landscape motifs that help to reveal the ideological content of the work. This passion for landscape has its own historical and social roots. This was influenced to a certain extent by the traditions laid down in the first years of the development of Soviet fine arts in Tajikistan. Constant and deep communication with nature has developed among Tajik artists a certain structure of the plein air language of painting, which distinguishes their works.”

Besides a craving to display nature, there was and continues to be a desire to use elements and patterns of traditional Tajik culture. In addition to natural landscapes, almost all the works of modern Tajik artists are filled with elements of decorative and applied art: whistles in the shape of dragons, clay and rag toys, earthenware and glazed national dishes of various shapes, decorated bowls and vases, metal jugs… Looking at the country’s decorative art, one can learn about the soul of the people, their ideas about beauty and goodness, their fantasies and dreams.

An important type of visual art that developed under the Islamic prohibition on depicting the human image was Kundal, an ornamental painting technique. Here, each image becomes an element of an ornamental composition that focuses on geometric motifs. Kundal involves the application of gilt and silver paint to a relief clay base and was widely used in architecture as well as in panels/paintings. The cross and the swastika were of particular importance in Tajik culture, expressing harmony and health. The swastika had a special significance in the culture of the ancient Tajiks, denoting the four elements of nature (water, soil, air, and fire). The triangle was the symbol of a woman, hence why applied arts feature many triangle-shaped amulets.

One must also mention woodcarving as a significant form of folk applied art. Woodcarving attained a high level thanks to the skills of amateur artist Sirojiddin Nuriddinov (1919-1995). Ideologically, his panels reflected the Soviet reality, but he made portraits of the poets and heroes of Persian literature. In his works, he employed traditional forms of oriental architecture and ornamental art. The main achievements of the artist’s work were elevating the craft of woodcarving to the status of fine art and giving it the grace of sculpture.

Artists

Naive techniques are used by many artists in Tajikistan, including Farrukh Negmatzade, Akmal Mirshakar, Vladimir Glukhov, and Maksud Mirmukhamedov.

Farrukh Negmatzade (born 1959) is one of the brightest representatives of the country’s fine arts. The artist has experimented with all genres and styles of fine art: abstract (early works), nude (Green and Orange, Blue and White exhibition in 2004), and monumental (Red and Gray series reflecting the Soviet past and present of the country). Since 2005, he has painted rural landscapes, depicting rural life through the eyes of a city dweller. Significantly, this series of works—seasonal landscapes featuring individuals who look similar to cartoon characters—has become popular and enjoyed commercial success.

The naive element of childish or cartoony characters has made his signature style recognizable among the country’s art community. Looking at his paintings, one can understand how the country lives now. The artist often goes to bazaars, mosques, and kishlaks (villages) to collect material for his work. Reflecting the social situation on the ground, he rarely mixes female characters with male characters.

Akmal Mirshakar (born 1961) is the youngest son of Mirsaid Mirshakar (1912–1993), a famous poet and public figure of Soviet Tajikistan. The artist is a colorist, applying a sense of humor to the decorativeness that reflects the reality of his country. His people have similar faces to those in medieval frescoes, as if they have descended from those canvases to visit his country. Female figures wear dry expressions, likely reflecting the worries and hardships of life. In his few (mostly early) works depicting men, their faces are full of anxiety. His female images are resonant with a sense of perseverance and vitality: they are in a constant hurry, whether on their way to visit someone or to shop. Mirshakar may have been the first in Tajikistan to use Warhol’s portrait of actress Marilyn Monroe on his canvases.

Despite the traditional way in which he depicts his characters, he is extremely modern. His work keeps its finger on the pulse, focusing on the synthesis of modernity and archaism as a defining characteristic of his society.

Maksud Mirmukhamedov (born 1986) quickly moved away from the canons of academicism and became serious about decorativeness, boldly using elements of traditional culture and primitivism. The artist deploys the whole range of signs and symbols that abound in Tajik culture, including the pomegranate, a symbol of family—and fertility, without which a family in the traditional sense is not possible; the bird, a poetic symbol of love or the soul of a beloved who has flown in to talk with his beloved; and the cage, which represents a trap or obstacles to freedom.

All Mirmukhamedov’s works are about himself, his family, and the people that surround him. Thinking about children as a continuation of himself and the family is the fundamental theme of his work.

Vladimir Glukhov (1961–2018) was a Russian-Tajik artist who absorbed all the colors and shades of the nature and culture of Tajikistan. His characters are fantastic, unrealistic, and funny, full of the grotesque and humor. The artist purposely indicates an exaggeration of reality, a reflection of his invented reality. It has been said that “The features of European Fauvism are manifested in the works of Vladimir Glukhov. The color symbolism inherent in his work, combined with elements of folklore, gives contemporaries a reason to call the artist ‘Russian Gauguin.’” Although I personally do not see Gauguin in this artist, I do see him as a bright representative of naive art.

Conclusion

Summing up, I would like to emphasize that the term naivety has a negative connotation and should be replaced, on the recommendation of Tajik artists, with a more accurate description of artists’ works. In fact, it is the norm for highly skilled artists to use techniques of primitivism and move between academism and primitivism. Naivety is not only a direction of primitivism, but also a state of mind in which an artist sometimes allegorically, sometimes realistically, softly, exaltedly conveys the reality he has seen. The artist uses a different metaphor, employing the rich traditional culture of a people whose semiotics is full of various signs, symbols, and hints.

Artists in Tajikistan are well aware of the importance of the visual naivety of artistic expression. They may even naively believe that the allegorical nature of their works will be understood among the younger generation. The most important thing is to recognize that naivety is not superficial, frivolous or sugary, but an equal direction for artistic self-expression in the country. With this vital recognition, Tajik artists can take their place among the global naive art community.

Acknowledgments:

i. Artist Karim Nazhmiddinov (born 1958)

ii. Art critic Larisa Dodkhudoeva (born 1947)

iii. Public figure Ilkhom Abdulloev (born 1977)

iv. People’s artist of the Republic of Tajikistan Savzali Sharipov (born 1946) and his son,

v. Artist Murod Sharipov (born 1984)

References:

1) Lutfiya Aini, ed., Essays on the Artists of Tajikistan (Dushanbe: Donish, 1975), 21.

2) Law of the Republic of Tajikistan on Public Finance of the Republic of Tajikistan No. 946, March 19, 2013.

3) UNESCO and IFES, “Art and Aesthetic Education in the Republic of Tajikistan: Issues and Prospects for the Development of Creative Abilities in the XXI Century” (Dushanbe, 2010).

4) Rauf Muradov, foreword, Landscape of the Mountainous Region (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1986).

5) A.A. Tikhonova, “The Symbol of the Swastika: Archetypal Meaning, History and Modernity,” Vestnik MGUKI 6 (68) (November-December 2015).

6) Larisa Dodkhudoeva, Tajik Graphic Art and Sculpture of the 20th Century (Dushanbe, 2006).

7) Firuz Ulmasov, ed., Tajik Art (Dushanbe: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, 2002), 22.

“I wish to see kok-par players – “Steppe Wolves” from Central Asia on the world’s best catwalks. They are not the refined Europeans, just ordinary guys from a remote aul with crooked legs and scarred faces, bruised from the kok-par fights. Their clothes are soaked in sweat, horse urine, and dust from steppe winds. They are real, they are not ideal doll-like models from fashion magazine covers. They walk in high heel boots, which are not supposed to make them pretty but are perfect for riding horses so that the feet do not jump out of the stirrups during the kok-par. I would like to see exactly this kind of show. It could be fantastic to discover a different perspective and watch kok-par boys from Central Asia in a world-class fashion show, pulling the flag-korpeshe over. This is not to imitate the Europeans and Americans, but on the contrary, to turn the eye to Central Asian steppes,” – says Said Atabekov, a prominent Central Asian artist.

Said Atabekov is a key personality in the Central Asian contemporary art landscape. He experiments with a variety of media, from installations and performances, to photography and video. Born in 1965 in Bes Terek in the Tashkent Oblast of Uzbekistan, he studied at the Shymkent Art College named after Kasteev and was engaged in training of young artists and organizing art exhibitions. He began his career during perestroika in the Soviet Union which enabled him to pursue greater artistic freedom. In that time, he founded the art-collective “Kyzyl Traktor” (Red Tractor). In 2011 Atabekov was honored with a Prince Claus Award.

Atabekov was born in a settled village in Uzbekistan, but got charmed with the wide steppes and now lives in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. “I was not born in a yurt, but I am very attracted to the open space of the steppe. Kazakh music, horizons, steppe, horses…”

In this interview, he reflects on different aspects of nomadic culture. He is eager to tell as much as he can to the whole world about his passion for the Great Steppe and he does this through his artwork.

Sometimes Central Asian artists cannot escape temptation and their works have a distinctive national flavor: horses, mountains, steppes, beautiful girls with moon-like faces and courageous heroes. Your works about nomads and steppes do not follow this tendency, or this is much more complicated?

I can’t say it’s bad or good to paint horses, but this is our past. The transition from a nomadic life to a sedentary way of life is hard to endure, and I felt it through my own experience. It is hard for me to live in the city. I can’t stop thinking about going to the steppe, to the open space. Especially when I see these typical boxes- khruchevki and houses from the 104/105 series built in Soviet times. Any theme can become a good creation and horses convey the national flavor well. I am trying to find myself in my works, impersonality has no value to me. I aspire to shed light on the traditions of the past years, because this is how people of the Steppe used to live. On the other hand, it is also interesting to move to another unexplored level. It is important to learn to listen to the Great Steppe. At the same time, I enjoy exploring history and legends, though it could not be easy, as archival documents are usually difficult to access or simply useless.

I first learned about your works through a series of photographs called “Way to Rome,” and I was struck by this diversity of flags used with this piece. Immediately there was an association with the Great Silk Road – namely, as flags are milestones in history and as markers of territories. What is this project really about and why flags?

The project “Way to Rome” goes beyond the term and meaning of “Silk Road.” Its creation began with a reflection on the American flag. After all, millions of people on our planet dream of becoming citizens of the United States. Frankly speaking, I thought about that, but after spending some time in the United States, I realized that I will not be able to live there. I decided to make Flags-korpeshe^[1] (blankets) and to stay in my city Shymkent.

I believe it is better to miss the USA than to miss Shymkent and live in the USA. I am happy to live on my native land, and it doesn’t matter if Shymkent needs me or not. The project itself involves creating flags of every developed country in the world, which our state works to become similar to and takes as an example to follow.

At the recent Dolce & Gabbana show, sophisticated male models were walking on the catwalk with pants tucked into boots and holding in their hands a goat. Their haute-couture looks contrasted snow-white goat accessories like wolves and goats; this opposition is conceptualized by the Kazakh artist’s piece “Steppe Wolves”.

Flag blankets are not your only textile experiment, in “The Stories of the Great Steppe” you create the image of a courageous Kok-par player. Here, you introduced globalization into nomadic traditions and way of life.

This piece is a series of photos entitled “Steppe Wolves” where logos of different brands including cars, clothing, and country names are used. I was trying to use images of tankers, paratroopers, marines, customs officers, airport employees, soccer players, etc. Documentary photos were taken in different areas in southern Kazakhstan from 2010 onward. The traditional game Kok-par is very popular among the nomads of Central Asia. The game itself embodies the image of our modern world, which is governed by fierce competition. When you watch this game, the participants are fighting for the “goat carcass”, over the steppe playing field converge several thousand riders appearing almost battle-like. They struggle to find the best place under the Sun, because in space even dust is trying to find its place: in a natural disaster, a devastating flood, a rapid whirlpool, or volcanic lava. Who will be rewarded with luck is decided by an invisible, Heavenly Judge.

Do you use historical data: photos, written and oral testimonies to create the image of a Kok-par player? Or is it the fruit of your artistic and reflective imagination?

In Soviet times, it was forbidden to hold or organize Kok-par games. My friends told me that horses were sold for meat and to whomever could hide them in the steppe. And still the game was played secretly far from the center of the city. People who were caught during Soviet times tell us curious stories about this period. Kok-par players wore tank helmets to denote a number of associations. Perhaps their ancestors defended Moscow from the Germans Nazi in 1941, or participated in the Battle of Borodino in 1812, or perhaps they rode horses a long way across Europe to Paris and Berlin. They took part in the “Battle of the Ice” or in the Middle Eastern campaign, which was led by Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan himself. Although international organizations do not like Kok-par, this traditional game has been organized for several thousand years. Not only Kok-par riders, but also horses participating in it, want to fight and try themself at the game.

Every piece of your work is unique and should be described and analyzed separately. But if we take a look at the coats “U.S. Marine Corps in Central Asia” and “Genghis Khan’s Suit” they both demonstrate a combination of cotton camouflage and patterned silk fabric. Does that mean you equate Genghis Khan conquest of the Central Asians with the U.S. military operation in the region?

The “U.S. Marine Corps in Central Asia” series of coats and chapans^[2] was created when U.S. forces were stationed in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and Hanabad (Uzbekistan) in the early 2000s. Those bases once served as military units of the Soviet Union, but several years later the Americans landed in the military bases of independent Central Asian countries. The camouflage fabric, which is used to make uniforms for soldiers, speaks directly to the army theme. Combined with patterned fabric, it embodies the union of cold and warmth, feast and tragedy, victory, and defeat…… Genghis Khan’s camouflage chapan also reminds us about the heroes-batyrs of the past years and the commander’s own complex and controversial personality. While asking questions, I am replying with my works. Thus, the Mongolian Empire is replaced by the “American sector”.

Historical costumes can be a huge resource for inspiration like those which are preserved in Penjikent paintings, ancient miniatures, and photographs. Your textile production partly resonates with historical costume legacy of Central Asia, even if sometimes it is your own interpretation. Have you ever wanted to create a collection of “historical” clothing? For example, the “Modern Dervish” or “Be Genghis Khan” outfits for every day?

I am fascinated by the costumes of past epochs and although at first glance all the costumes of Central Asia are the same, a closer look reveals the smallest details and differences. Only in Kazakhstan, we have different variations of Kazakh traditional costumes in each region. Of course, I have many ideas, but I do not have the experience of a fashion designer.

^[1] Korpeshe is a traditional form of Central Asian textile, which serves as a mattress and a blanket in the tents of nomads.

^[2] Chapan is a coat worn over clothes. It is worn in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Norton Townshend Dodge (June 15, 1927 – November 5, 2011) was an American economist who amassed one of the largest Soviet-era art collections outside of the Soviet Union.

Dodge, who was a Sovietologist, first traveled to the USSR in 1955 and smuggled into the West the works of dissident artists, painters, and sculptors in the former Soviet Union. He continued to acquire art and meet clandestinely with artists, often at great personal risk, till the death of dissident artist Evgeny Rukhin and the coming of perestroika. He managed to smuggle nearly 10,000 works of art from the USSR to the United States during the height of the Cold War.

The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art was donated to Rutgers University in the mid-1990s, where it is on permanent display at the university’s Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. The Dodge Collection is the largest collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art in existence. More than 20,000 works, by close to 1,000 artists, reveal a culture that defied the politically imposed conventions of Socialist Realism. This encyclopedic array of nonconformist art extends from about 1956 to 1986, spanning a period from the beginning of Khrushchev’s cultural “thaw” to the advent of Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika. The collection includes art made in Russia, as well as many examples of nonconformist art produced in the Soviet republics, including Central Asian countries. (Wikipedia)

The Zimmerli Art Museum is one of the largest and most distinguished university-based museums in the United States. It collects, preserves, researches, and exhibits world-class works of art, providing the university community and its diverse regional, national, international audiences an intimate experience with the visual art.

Founded in 1966 as the Rutgers University Art Gallery, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum was established in 1983, due to the growth of the permanent collection.

‘”Nonconformism,” as a trend, was a characteristic phenomenon of Soviet art and emerged as a reverse reaction following the rejection of the ideological attitudes pertaining to socialist realism, which had become an obsolete dogma in the Soviet art.

While Russian nonconformist artists are relatively known, less is written about their compatriots from the Soviet Central Asian republics.

As the Norton and Nancy Dodge collection was largely amassed in the second half of the 20th century, it acquired its pieces from Central Asia in the early 2000s. Right after, the Zimmerli Museum opened an exhibition of artists from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, including representatives of several generations, which showed the prominence of their art schools that combined Central Asian artistic traditions and the Russian avant-garde with the oriental flavor and touch of the Western modernism.

When selecting works from Central Asia to replenish the collection of Norton Dodge, Jane Sharp, a curator from Rutgers University, included the post-war, pre-perestroika and nonconformist (unofficial) art of Kazakhstan. Among them were artists who worked during the “Soviet thaw.” This generation has reassessed their creative heritage vis-a-vis the backdrop of socialist realism.

As Jane Sharp herself commented on the composition of the Central Asian collection*:

“Despite my attempts at impartiality, the weight of this exhibition decisively tilted in favor of Kazakhstan. It was primarily a logistics solution. For political and practical reasons, there are now more opportunities for acquiring and studying Soviet art from Kazakhstan than from other former Central Asian republics. It was more difficult to establish contacts with artists in Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan”.

The art of Central Asia acquired national identification only in the twentieth century, as a result of Russian, and then Soviet, colonization, and the emergence of the nation-states. This was all before peoples of the steppe were identified through their ties with various linguistic groups, local administrative centers, and hereditary affiliation. In Central Asian art, particularly in its alternative forms to the socialist realism, such categories as “official” and “unofficial”, “state” and “private” had been ambiguous.

Such obvious contradictions were the norm for many artists of Central Asia, where the slogan “national in form, socialist in content” was widely applied. For example, the works of Kazakh artists Abdrashid Sydykhanov or Zhanatay Shardenov encompass both acceptable picturesque national landscapes, and “unacceptable”, highly individualistic expressive and formalistic works. That is, the generation of Kazakh and Uzbek artists of the sixties and seventies combined their work for official structures with those for free creativity, which challenged the canonical dogmas of Soviet ideology. The American collection includes such artists of the sixties as Shaimardan Sariev, Abdrashit Sydykhanov, and Zhanatay Shardenov, who was nicknamed the “Kazakh Van Gogh.”

As they pursued clearly classic forms, the connection with their native culture and land remained, giving their work a unique aspect of oriental flavor. Salikhitdin Aitbaev, a very powerful and bright artist, who also boldly and interestingly experimented with form and color, did not get into the collection. But the collection includes the now almost forgotten name of Boris Chuvylko, an artist who specialized in book graphics and monumental art. He was born in Tashkent, but lived and worked in Alma-Ata.

In the collection of Norton Dodge, great attention is paid to such epoch-making masters from Kazakhstan, such as Sergey Kalmykov, Pavel Zaltsman, Evgeny Sidorkin, who were the successors of the Russian avant-garde and the powerful academic school, who, by the will of fate, linked their life and work with Kazakhstan. If Kalmykov created the aesthetics of fantastic images and was a lone genius who had nothing to do with Soviet reality, then Sidorkin, on the contrary, updated the classics. He illustrated Saltykov Shchedrin’s “The History of a City,” keeping a satirical and grotesque tone of the author.

Jane Sharp clearly notes that art schools of Central Asia benefitted from an immense cultural exchange that was forced upon the region during Stalin’s repressions that sent thousands of exiled to the region and World War II evacuation of Russian artists to the region. “The forced resettlement of the entire population during the Soviet period and the introduction of agriculture in the form of collective farm collectives had a destructive effect on the nomadic population, their way of life, and material culture. Nevertheless, in the process of colonization and after, assimilation moved in both directions. Urban cultural centers were created, and with them, the “national schools” of painting “- writes Jane in the catalog for the exhibition. “So the artist and writer Pyotr Yakovlevich Zaltsman (1912-1985) combined in his pictorial artistic style the Filonov analytical school (the very work of his teacher’s legacy was prohibited in the USSR until 1967), which included Asian landscapes and similar images”.

Read more: Kazakh Graphic Illustrations of Evgeny Sidorkin

To understand the origins of the unofficial line in official Soviet Central Asian art, Sharp draws attention to what literature and visual information was available at that time to the artists of the sixties and seventies. Sharp writes: “It was possible to learn about Guttuso, but not about Italian futurists; information about Rockwell Kent was available, but not about Andy Warhol; Matisse, but not Duchamp.” Even in the late 1980s, artists in Central Asia would engage in dialogue with European modernists of the early twentieth century as a gesture of national defiance and cultural independence.

Architect and artist Almas Ordabaev and artist Vadim Sidorkin, who witnessed that era, note that artists subscribed to the most detachable art magazines from Poland’s Projekt and Przeglad Artistyczny, the Romanian magazine Arta, and the German Democratic Republic’s Bilden mit Kunst. Thus, we see that in the sixties, the exchange between Soviet artists and their colleagues from the countries in the socialist camp went on, despite the “iron curtain”. But in 1962 Khrushchev lashed out at the nonconformists at an anniversary art exhibition “30 Years of the Moscow Artists’ Union” at Moscow Manege where he famously spoke about “filth, decadence and sexual deviations”. This has been described as the beginning of the end of the cultural thaw in the Soviet Union.

Among Uzbek paintings, the Dodge collection includes works by Alexander Kedrin, brothers Alexander and Valery Volkovs. Although Valery was born in Skobelev (Fergana), and Alexander Volkov in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and both were educated by their Moscow artist father Alexander Volkov. They mostly lived and worked in Tashkent and Moscow; it is clear that they identify with both cultures.

“Early migrants from urban Moscow and St. Petersburg to Samarkand, Tashkent, Bukhara, Almaty were motivated by the desire to experience the exotic cultures of the region. By the first decade of the twentieth century, a tradition of oriental studies had developed in Russia. The increased Russian influence on border areas through exhibitions, ethnographic publications, and travel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was clearly an important incentive for artists” – says Jane Sharp.

The exhibition “Crossroads”, which was organized in 1989 at the Directorate of Art Exhibitions in Alma-Ata, brought together all unofficial artists of the city from surrealism to abstractionism and naive, including such artists as R. Khalfin, S. Maslov, Shai-Ziya, G. Tryakin-Bukharova, E. Vorobyova, art groups “Night tram”, “Green triangle “,” Asia-Art “and many others. It was a landmark exhibition that marked the transition to another post-Soviet era. Many names that this exhibition had discovered ended up in the Dodge collection.

The junction between the official and unofficial culture is complicated as witnessed by the works of artists in the underground Alma-Ata group “Green Triangle”, which had no analogs in the Central Asian region in the late 1980s. They initially positioned themselves as an independent group from various artistic councils, art organizations, and other structures.

In 1992, the Dodge generously donated their collection to the Zimmerli Museum, and in 1995, the collection entered the permanent exhibition of this museum. Nancy and Norton agreed that the essence of their collection is to demonstrate what the possibilities of creative expression were in the Procrustean bed of Soviet ideology.

The term Soviet Nonconformist Art refers to Soviet art produced in the former Soviet Union from 1953 to 1986 (after the death of Joseph Stalin until the advent of Perestroika and Glasnost) outside of the rubric of Socialist Realism.

*Based on author’s interview with Jane Sharp in 2000

Zitta Sultanbayeva

Artist, critic and journalist, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Despite the rich artistic traditions of the past, contemporary Uzbekistan can not particularly boast about its popular street art. Even in cosmopolitan Tashkent, public spaces sparkle with pristine purity. On the walls of buildings you can hardly find any murals created by professionals, or the colorful graffiti of “underground artists”.

Compared to neighboring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where street art harmoniously fits into public spaces, Uzbekistan stands apart. In fact, in the 1990s and 2000s in Tashkent, there was no single, serious work of street art created. At the same time, no official prohibitions at the legislative level for this type of art have ever existed. Why, then, can murals and graffiti not find a place in this country?

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Nikita Makarenko

Nikita Makarenko is a journalist from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He was a columnist and a special reporter for online media «Gazeta.uz». In 2020 he joined «Uzreport TV» to produce his own investigative TV show. From 2012 to 2015 Nikita led Central Asian arts’n’culture citizen-journalism project NewEurasia.net as the Managing Editor. In 2016, Nikita started his career as a playwright with his play «Airport» staged in the Ilkhom Theater. His new play «Tomorrow» was premiered in Tashkent in February 2020.

 Telegram channel: makarenko_channel, Twitter: nikmccaren, blog: https://makarenko.uz/

“In Soviet times, graffiti in Uzbekistan existed only in the form of acts of vandalism. You can still see the scratches caused by tourists on monuments, for example, at the Kalyan Minaret in Bukhara,” says Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov.

Nevertheless, the Soviet government supported one kind of street art that is preserved in the cities of Uzbekistan. Soviet monumental mosaics are smeared on the walls of buildings with a thick cultural layer. Which, however, are being quickly eliminated from both physical and mental memories. Local authorities see them as an “uncomfortable” Soviet legacy, or they simply do not understand their values.

“The snobbish attitude toward mosaics today is replaced by interest and even reverence among those generations that themselves did not live in the USSR. It suddenly turns out that works, which in Soviet times were presented as models of conformism and opportunism, today have a special aesthetic that captures the traces of the Soviet project. But Tashkent mosaics performed primarily a decorative function,” said Boris Chukhovich, president of the organization Alerte Héritage, art critic.

Read more: Street Art as a Public Forum in Kazakhstan: Pasha Cas

Being the only type of street art in Soviet Uzbekistan, mosaics did not provide an opportunity for free creativity. They were created via state order and in strict accordance with ideological principles. According to Vyacheslav Akhunov, Soviet and modern Uzbekistan would never voluntarily provide any space for artistic expression in street art. “Pop culture and its lifestyle, the widespread dissemination of rock and hip-hop music, non-conformist art – they simply did not exist. Or existed episodically that never was capable of turning into a mass movement. Against this background, graffiti art had no chance to be born as a new cultural phenomenon. During the tough rule of Karimov, and this, in fact, lasted for three decades, there could be no way to develop free culture and art in the modern sense,” – Akhunov said.

Surprisingly, the first major mural in Tashkent appeared only in 2018, 27 years after the liberation from the ideological fetters of the Soviet state, and two years after the death of the first President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov. An oriental narrative drawing synthesized cultural codes of Tashkent and Uzbekistan on the wall of a building along Shota Rustaveli Street.

To implement this project, the Mark Weil Theater Ilkhom and the Art Platform project (with the support of CEC Artslink) collaborated with an artist from Ukraine Dima Fatum in the hope that Tashkent artists would want to follow their example.

“We don’t have street artists. Our higher art education places a great emphasis on academic and decorative arts. Even at the institute itself, you couldn’t paint on the walls,” said Nadezhda Riksieva, an art decorator from Tashkent.

The creators of the mural on Rustaveli Street encountered procedural difficulties in creating their work. In fact, the legislation of Uzbekistan prohibits changing the appearance of the facade of a building without the permission of the State Committee for Architecture and Construction. A permit must be received even if the building is private. To receive a permit, one should submit a sketch and wait for the inspector to arrive on a site, and all this takes more than 5 days.”We spent a lot of time in order to find a suitable site. The owner of the business center agreed to give us the wall of the building. But we managed to get permission only after the idea was personally supported by the deputy hokim (mayor) of Tashkent Elbek Shukurov. The artists deliberately chose non-conflictive and non-provocative themes. We assumed that there could be problems with the approval of the sketch, “said one of the producers of the project, Irina Bharat.

Read more: Civil Protests, Art, and Politics in Kazakhstan

Many artists and representatives of the advertising industry in Uzbekistan agree that censorship of images still exists in Uzbekistan.

“Previously, all images for outdoor advertising had to be approved by the special organization Tashkent Advertising Service. There were many bans. The family must be shown with the son. The daughter is optional, but the son must be in the picture. Beards are forbidden. People of different sex – only at a distance, preferably standing. Each idea had to be approved for 2-3 weeks, and often we said to ourselves: “The idea is cool, but they won’t allow it,” says Alina Mirzaeva, director of the Synthesis creative agency.

Alina gives here some real comments received by their agency from censors during her work in the advertising business:

Agency: Girl 5 years old, holding something in her hands.

Censor: Is she holding a miscarried baby? Replace.

Agency: A guy and a girl are lying on the grass.

Censor: And why are they on the grass? Will they have sex now?

After the new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, began his reforms, the Tashkent Advertising Service agency, which dealt with censorship, was abolished. Alina notes that work has become more efficient. But censorship has not completely disappeared

On June 16, 2020, a curious incident involving an advertisement of a smoothie bar on Shota Rustaveli Street in Tashkent was widely discussed on social networks in Uzbekistan. The special commission on spirituality of the district municipality first demanded to cover the image of the female surfer in a swimsuit, considering it too frivolous. And the next day, the agency demanded that the image be removed.

Artists believe that the development of street art is hindered not only by censorship of the authorities, but also by self-censorship.

“Street art is the voice. This is a statement of the artist. But there is a stereotype in the minds – that street art, graffiti is illegal. People are afraid to draw freely, they are afraid to offend someone’s feelings or have problems with the authorities. If someone is brave enough to start, then the wave will follow. But no one does it. After all, no one forbade it,” says Nadezhda Riksieva. “There is no graffiti of social and political protest, openly expressing acute political and cultural contradictions. Uzbek artists do not practice such art, not only because of the fear of repressions by law enforcement agencies but also because of their own position of neutrality. And deprived of these components, street art loses its pathos, meaning, and purpose, and turns into an ordinary meaningless formalization, “says Vyacheslav Akhunov.

However, new names are appearing on Tashkent fences and walls. In 2020, a street artist InkUZart appeared in Tashkent. People warmly accepted his work, and photos quickly spread across social networks. His first works were dedicated to the coronavirus and emotions associated with the COVID-19 epidemic. The fences of the Tashkent residential area of Chilanzar decorated the rethinking of Mona Lisa with a mask, children painting in models of viruses and other subjects.

Over time, the author, hiding under a pseudonym, moved on to more daring works of social meaning. So, his latest graffiti ridicules the consumer orientation of the Uzbek society against the background of a rocket launching into space.

InkUZart has also faced censorship. According to him, the administration of the kindergarten, on the fence of which he painted “Mona Lisa”, tried to paint over it. Officials did not like that a lot of people were gathering near the picture. But the author managed to save his work.

“In my opinion, street art is an illustration of freedom. I think that this freedom was lacking in our country. But now it’s a different time. I’m more than sure now it won’t be the same as before. At least I won’t stop drawing,” says InkUZart.

Read more: Everyday Life in Art and the Art of Everyday Life: Re-Reading Soviet Mosaics in Dushanbe

In the midst of quarantine, I saw Stagnation (Стагнация) by Bobur Ismailov. The painting shows a lonely girl in a confined room with a book on her knees and the shadow of a black cat on a window against a colorful background. The painting seems to reflect social isolation and time to be alone.

Once Stagnation appeared in social networks, it echoed the sentiments of people from different parts of the world and transcended international borders. Contemporary art from Uzbekistan is different from what we used to see in the respected works of the masters of Soviet realism. Several artists discussed below—Vyacheslav (Yura) Useinov, Bobur Ismoilov, and Anna Ivanova—reflect immediately on everyday life; they are sensitive to the modern era, the contemporaries, and “life during COVID.”

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Snejana Atanova

Snezhana Atanova is a PhD candidate at INALCO. Her thesis focuses on nationalism and cultural heritage in Central Asia. She recently finished an IFEAC fellowship devoted to national identity in everyday life in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. She was awarded a Carnegie fellowship in 2017, in which she explored national identity through the nation-branding initiatives of Russia and Central Asian countries. She earned a Master’s in International Communication from the University of Strasbourg in 2012 and a Master’s from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in 2015.

Vyacheslav (Yura) Useinov

As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, his work entitled Alphabet of mutations of the Uzbek coronavirus shows a hand in a glove, which is imitating the Uzbek ikat. Several hand gestures symbolize socio-political transformations in the country respectively: Coronavirus grab-all, Coronavirus doesn’t give a damn, The hidden fist of the Uzbek Coronavirus, The hollow of lies, A flaming hello to China, The virus has pretended to be a poor relative and just begs to let him home, Coronavirus has taken up the knife… The artist explains:

“Under the Alphabet of the mutation of the Uzbek coronavirus, I meant that human wickedness and malice are much more vicious than any virus; they, like an epidemic, devastate the fabric of social consciousness and the state system.”

The next work, A Gesture of the Baby (2014) is composed of multivariate allegories taken from Christian, Islamic and Buddhist iconography: the elegiac face of Madonna, the holy child and a bird outline, folded wings and fingers, and surah from the Koran in Arabic calligraphy. This eclectic work, by its techniques and its significance, represents another symbol of time: the cultural and religious diversity of the modern world. How will the pandemic affect it?

Bobur Ismoilov

Bobur Ismoilov is an artist and illustrator from Tashkent. His art can be categorized in three groups: paintings, graphics, and drawings. Some art critics believe that Ismoilov’s paintings are touched by surrealism. The artist himself calls them “symbolic narratives.” The artist looks at the current pandemic philosophically:

Two other works were created long before the pandemic, but their significance is particularly relevant in these “COVID-19 days.” My favorite one is called Photo on the memory (Фотография на память). It pictures female figures in burqas with the chachwan lowered, and next to them is a little dog. This silkscreen printing was created in 2016 and was a huge hit in the newly created “Art Bazaar” auction. Two women, fully covered by the burqa as a symbol of humanity, trying to escape from a raging pandemic—just as we all are trying to hide behind the walls of our houses, isolated by our own will or that of others… But can a thin fabric protect us from outside disasters?

Almost every day on his Facebook page, Ismoilov posts a new painting as a reflection of everyday life. Giving Hazorispand is Ismoilov’s answer to the erupting COVID-19 pandemic. In Central Asia, there was a widespread belief that local herbs such as harmel, known as garmala, isyryk, yuzerlik or hazorispand – ‘grass from a thousand diseases’ –would help protect against the virus both physically by disinfecting the air and symbolically by chasing out evil spirits. Giving Hazorispand symbolizes our hope for healing.

The themes of loneliness, social isolation, slowing down, and stopping time are all reflected by the aforementioned Stagnation as well as the Everyday Still-Life (Житейский натюрморт). A man and a woman are separated by a table on which their entire household routine is piled up. They are separated not only by the space of the table, but by their thoughts and worries. They are deeply alone even if together. A solid wall with a lone radio in the background, like a silent SOS signal, highlights the alienation of the couple. It’s isolation in isolation, isolation squared.

Anna Ivanova

Anna Ivanova was born in 1971 in Tashkent. In 1993, she graduated from the Graphic Arts faculty of the Tashkent State Pedagogical Institute. Anna has participated in a number of international and national exhibitions and projects. Among them: The “East-West” exhibition in Tashkent, the Tashkent Biennale, the “Quebec: le nouvel orientalisme” project in Montreal, “Women’s art workshops “Kitchen” in Moscow, and the “Festival of Islamic Culture” in Almaty. To find more of Anna Ivanova’s works, please visit here page on “Art Bazaar”.

“The quarantine has done little to change my plans, as I used to spend most of my time at home with my painting. However, the whole situation because of the virus is certainly depressing. The recently organized “Art Bazaar” is like a ray of light on such times as COVID. We not only sell our artworks, we chat and discuss a lot; this has become our virtual and transnational art family now.”

This is how the talented Anna Ivanova comments on the time she has spent in quarantine. The artist’s works seem simple and naive in their execution, but this simplicity is so real and literal that its effects are immersive. Anna presented a whole series of works which have been called “quarantine weekdays” at the Tashkent market. In Central Asian cities, the bazaar is the center of life and human interaction; but it is also likely to be a space where people interact too closely and thus may spread the disease. How does one maintain the closeness and intimacy of the bazaars amid the pandemics?

Anna was passionate about “bazaar painting” long before COVID-19, often mixing light and colors on the life of the central bazaar in Tashkent, Chorsu. After discovering a series of drawings by Russian artist Evgeniy Rusak that were devoted to the everyday life of medical doctors, disinfection brigades, and the ordinary citizens at his Telegram-channel “Coronavirus Art”, Anna decided to create her own Chronicles of the Central Asian Bazaar. This work has become a historical record of COVID-19 in Tashkent, one which will be explored by future generations. It is interesting to learn how the pandemic affects the established rhythm of the bazaar and changes its characters; new heroes appear in suits looking like astronauts amid the piles of fruits and vegetables, while sellers and buyers of the bazaar look like strangers in masks and rubber gloves. No more hugs and handshakes! Long queues are lined up for the cheapest and most needed products. The artist scrupulously reflects every detail in her work.

The author expresses her gratitude to all artists for their inspiration and regrets that he was unable to cover the work of every representative of the art community of Uzbekistan. Images of artworks are courtesy of the artists.

Feminism is not adequately perceived in Central Asian societies. Some consider it as a threat to the existing traditions of the patriarchal foundation, when a woman (responsible for too many things in the family) can get out of control, damaging the nation in its demographic development. Some believe that women have been already quite liberated in Central Asia, and therefore their excessive demands for freedom contribute to the destabilization of the region.

To better understand this, I met with two feminist activists and proponents of gender equality and social justice from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Zulaykho Usmanova, a researcher from Tajikistan, and Altyn Kapalova, art activist from Kyrgyzstan.

I talked with each of these leading figures in Central Asia about the uprise of feminist movements in Central Asia and the role of arts in reflecting the global issue on gender equality.

Author

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Lolisanam Ulugova

Lolisanam has been an art manager in Tajikistan since 2000. She has contributed to writing and producing the nation’s first 3-D animation film, a short designed to promote awareness of environmental issues among children. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Turin, Italy and an undergraduate degree in Russian Language and Literature. She was a Global Cultural Fellow at the Institute for International Cultural Relations at the University of Edinburgh and participated in the Central Asian-Azerbaijan (CAAFP) fellowship program at the George Washington University at Elliott School of International Affairs for Fall 2019.

Zulaykho Usmanova

What does Tajik art mean in gender terms? What is it like? Is there a big difference in the images/representations of the social roles between the Soviet period and modern Tajikistan?

In the Soviet period, women were considered as an oppressed class, and the main goal of the state was to liberate women and achieve their equality with men in all social spheres: legal, economic, social, and political. The political and civil equality of women and men was enshrined in the first Soviet Constitution of 1918; the first decrees provided women with the fullness of civil rights and freedoms and equalized them with men in the face of the law, and the decrees of TurkTSIK (the Turkistan implementing body) in 1924 set legal responsibility for polygamy and forced marriage against the will of the woman. In order to achieve the time period’s goals around women’s liberation, it fought traditional and religious vestiges related to the status of a woman: retreat of a woman, early marriage, polygamy, kalym (ransom), etc.

As for arts in the Soviet period, theaters and cinematographers often raised the subject of women’s emancipation and criticized traditional stereotypes and prejudices about the place and role of women.

I would especially like to note the film Zumrad, 1961 (dir. Alexander Davidson and Abdusalom Rakhimov, Tajikfilm) which conveyed a rather progressive message about a young woman who managed to get away from her violent husband, resist stereotypes and stigma, and ultimately make a professional career.

Regarding the arts of independent Tajikistan, the arts have the same agenda of reflecting a condition of building an independent national state. The president, Emomali Rahmon, pays attention to the issue of educating girls and women, expanding their rights and opportunities. However, the country’s art institutions remain quite traditional and do not demonstrate topics in this regard. Perhaps I am not very aware of the new theatrical productions and films, but I do not recall seeing those that would reflect images of strong, independent, modern women.

Modern Tajik culture inherently contains the idea of ​​respecting a woman, especially a woman-mother, observing cultural norms that limit aggressive attitudes towards a woman, as well as a public demonstration of feelings. These standards require compliance with tactfulness in the sphere of marital relations. Nonetheless, the attitude towards women in society has been a rather controversial issue. This attitude strongly depends on the type of locality (rural or urban), the level of education of the individual, his/her level of engagement with the ideas of the patriarchy, and, ultimately, the level of internal freedom of the individual. To be honest, I have little hope that the adult generation (at age of 40-45 years and older) can change old stereotypes.

As for the Tajik society’s attitude toward single women, I state with bitterness that we are still far from having an equal and fair attitude towards them, regardless of their age and social status. The mandatory presence of a man (father, brother, husband, son) to be next to their women (with the purpose of controlling or monitoring) has been considered to be the norm in Tajik society and has put independent women into a lower social position. There is hope for the younger generation, which is more open to new ideas. They might create a Tajik society of the future, where women will be equal to men.

You are part of a project created by Alla Rumyantseva, a curator from Tajikistan who has built a group of young artists and teaches them how to reflect on gender issues through contemporary art. What is important about this project, and what problems/risks exist to reflect gender issues?

I participated in Alla Rumyantseva’s project as a speaker. I had a presentation devoted to gender stereotypes and their “vitality” in the public mind. The presentation was well received by the audience and caused a lengthy discussion. I consider the project important, because during the project, important issues and problems of Tajik society are addressed. But I also think such projects should run on an ongoing basis, and not tied to the temporary grants. Among the risks of the discourse that Alla Rumyantseva raises, I consider the main risk to be a hail of criticism and rejection of feminist ideas in response to the project.

Alla Rumyanseva’s gender project, 2018-2020

“The tragic fate of a woman is a theme that has always been in the works of artists of all times and all nations. The tragedy would often be the effect of a woman’s lack of rights and freedoms, for the society has always perceived her first as the property of the parents, then of the husband. The situation of a woman in Tajik society now is largely the same as it has been since times immemorial. Like in the past, in the modern world, the Tajik woman has limited access to education, is subjected to violence both physical and psychological, and has to live in the conditions of an increasingly radicalized society, under stereotypes and high demands from society. These are all modern realities of Tajik women.”

(an excerpt from a booklet of the Alla Rumyanseva’s gender project, 2018-2020)

Feminism in Central Asia. What are the main causes of resistance to this movement in the region? Can you comment on the latest events related to the march in Bishkek on International Women’s Day and a public gathering of a group of Tajik feminists in Dushanbe? Do you see leverage on patriarchal forces in the region?

Feminism in Central Asia is just beginning to gain momentum. Unfortunately, understanding of feminism—awareness of its essence and goals—is rather weak throughout the region. The events of March 8 in Bishkek have shown this. These events also demonstrated the Russian media’s high level of influence on the consciousness of Central Asian residents. Most Russian TV channels tirelessly talk about feminism in a negative way, about its “bad” effect on Russian women. This is somewhat strange, bearing in mind the 25-year-old tradition of gender studies and the women’s movement in Russia. Nevertheless, a negative attitude towards feminism in one way or another affects the responsiveness of citizens of all countries in the region, makes them consider feminism an alien and harmful phenomenon, and causes them to oppose the actions of feminists.

Solving this issue requires long and painstaking work at the highest level as outreach and educational work with local communities—whose members must understand that gender equality is beneficial for the community, for families, and for the country as a whole. Such work should be carried out not only by holding large, beautiful, feminine events. It is necessary to carry out active activities to educate and raise the level of gender literacy of communities. To do this, we first need to train civil society organizations and governmental bodies on how to do this, and then financially support them—but namely through the activity aspect, not events.

In this era of rapid exchange of information and the development of AI (artificial intelligence), do you think that the increased information will ultimately reduce the pressure and dominance of the patriarchy?

I think that in the distant future, our descendants will be surprised to read and learn about patriarchy. Already now you can observe a small (so far) layer of young men and women who seem to be freer from patriarchal ideas, try to resist stereotypes, indicate gender awareness, and are quite loyal to feminism. It pleases and inspires hope. I believe that the ranks of these people will increase, and society will become more democratic and friendly to women. Today’s dominance of the patriarchy can be reduced by the active citizenship and solidarity of all progressive forces in society in steadily empowering women and girls and breaking stereotypes and stigma against women.

Altyn Kapalova

Please tell us about yourself as a curator and an art experimenter, what does contemporary art mean to you and your most significant projects in contemporary art?

For me, contemporary art is a tool for social changes. In my curatorial projects, I do not reflect the futility of being, poetic pathos, or the past and future. In all my curatorial projects I say, “guys, we have a social problem, here it is, we need to solve it.” The feminist agenda is the most important to me. I experiment a lot, trying through art to show the problems of women.

For example, I had a project when I traveled to villages and talked to rural women about contemporary art and invited them to talk about their problems and use contemporary art to help tell the story. In fact, they spoke a language that they did not know much—the language of art—but they spoke very loudly and vividly.

The project was called “A4. Village, Women, Art and Activism.” These four words in Kyrgyz begin with the letter “a.” Four capacious words that reveal the essence of this project: women from rural communities who express important social issues through artistic language. The local activists tried to speak the language of contemporary art, which is little known to them as I said. They touch on social issues that affect the life of their entire community. Among such problems are the informal institute of midwives, access to drinking water, and the subjects of family violence, women’s leisure, and women’s participation in political life. Aside from this project, I had curatorial projects in the fields of ecology, regional division, etc.

Up to now, my most significant project is the Feminnale. It is not because of the big scandal around the Feminnale—which made us famous enough, though I paid huge cost for it by baiting the traditionalists, etc. It is the most significant to me because of its content. This is the coolest concept of an exhibition that I have ever come up with: both the format of the exhibition and its theme. The format of the Feminism Biennale (Feminnale) is not tied to a place, it can take place in any country, in any city, and it can do so without political boundaries, without age restrictions, without discrimination on gender, sexual orientation, etc. The theme of the first Feminnale was devoted to women’s economic freedom. The co-curator Zhanna Araeva suggested the word “Kormilitsa” (nurse) to name the subject of the Feminnale. We conceptualized it by trying to think about who the nurse is, the one who is breastfeeding, who has to cook for the whole family, the one who is forced to be in labor migration and to be the earner. This topic covered a wide range of subjects from the stigma of women breastfeeding to economic violence against women, which is often associated with physical violence.

“The word Kormilitsa means both a female breadwinner and a provider in Russian. Thus, who is really that kormilitsa? A woman with milk in the ducts of her breasts? A woman who is responsible for cooking for family members (according to the assumptions of the patriarchal society)? A woman who leaves for labor migration to provide financially for a family? How much economic freedom does this woman have?”

(an excerpt from a call on the 1^st Feminnale of Contemporary Art, “Kormilitsa. Economic freedom. Woman”)

Feminism and Central Asia – what went wrong? It seems that the liberation of women in Central Asia took place at the dawn of the birth of Soviet power, and what has changed since the independence of the Central Asian republics?

It seems to me that “the liberation of the Central Asian women under the Soviet regime” is a big myth. This was the part of the Feminnale. I think it was a deal with the patriarchy. I can consider this just based on some available information on the dawn of the emergence of Soviet power. However, I know for sure about the late Soviet period. Because I lived in it, and there was no feminism at all. All my aunts plowed in the fields, worked in offices, and in factories; and in the evenings, they served all their relatives from father-in-law to the children of relatives—plus livestock, plus children, plus giving births endlessly, plus the husband, plus all the social networking of a big family and its toll on women. The time of independence has continued the exploitation of women. There is little that has changed. I am very far from romanticizing the pre-Soviet period. Yes, sometimes there were women rulers in our history stories. Rarely, but there were. But they were not because people created the conditions for an equal existence and equal opportunities.

I would rather say, “these women were not because of, but in spite of.” Contrary to the foundations, contrary to the system, contrary to prohibitions.

Back to the Feminnale, how you could assess its outcomes? How did the idea of the Feminnale first come to you? Its authenticity is undoubtful.

n 2019, I was in Almaty at “Femagora” and met female artists from Bishkek with a very clear feminist agenda. Honestly, I did not know about their existence. I realized that they are in the shadow of “male art.” I decided I needed to connect them with my counterparts on feminism in Bishkek, Kina Yusupova, Aida Musulmankulova, Zhanna Araeva, Gulyayim Aiylchy, Aigul Karabalina. They supported my idea to help them to be more visible to a wider audience. And in fact, with this small team we have provided an exhibition in which more than 20 countries and more than 50 artists took part.

It is important to emphasize that it was a grassroots initiative. We don’t have a donor or someone who has seriously supported and incurred expenses. We were supported by Kyrgyz businesses. The only organization that has signed up to this “dangerous” project was the Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan.

We were supported by Kyrgyz women throughout the country who had transferred amount as small as two dollars to our wall, which I admit with some trepidation. There were amounts of $100, too. The largest amount was $300. When a nurse from a hospitals transfers $2 to the Feminnale’s account, that nurse essentially sacrifices two of her dinners to you. Then you understand how important this exhibition was for women. I consider it as the main achievement of the Feminnale. That is the Feminnale in reality, and not the museum space where few people visit.

The Feminnale was one big challenge. From the moment of preparation to the present and afterwards. As for my works as a curator, it was very difficult initially, because of a lack of funds. I felt as though we went to unknown space where money was not enough, new rules of the game were imposed, and we were outside of market relations. I predicted that I would have to start investing my own money. Installation of the exhibition was around-the-clock because the museum gave little time for installation. The museum’s activities are not designed for exhibitions of contemporary art. And plus, since we could not use the services of express mails, we mainly used the services of state postal services for low cost, which normally took a long time. We were aware that that some works would arrive late, but we had tried. But the real hell happened after the opening of the exhibition. The director of the museum resigned. She and I were subjected to terrible harassment, both on social networks and on TV.

The mistreatment against me still continues, especially after my participation on the “March on 8^th March” events. (Kyrgyzstan police held about 70 activists for hours on March 8, 2020 without telling us the grounds for our detention or providing access to lawyers). We came under attack at the peaceful International Women’s Day march in Bishkek. A mob of men, many wearing medical masks or other face coverings, attacked us as we were beginning the march to call attention to the serious problem of violence against women in Kyrgyzstan. The masked men threw eggs at the marchers, dragged us to the ground, and destroyed our banners. When police arrived, the mob dispersed, but rather than seeking out the attackers, police forced us, the activists and march participants, to board the buses and took us to the police station. As a result of this gross detention with the use of physical strength, I had sprains on my arm and bruises on both my chest and arms.

What are your prospects for the development of the feminist movement in Central Asia? What steps need to be taken to achieve equality in the distribution of social and economic benefits in Central Asia?

These are very difficult questions. I have no answer to them. Until recently, I talked about what we need to start with in school textbooks. I was saying that while we are trying to work with an adult audience, these terrible textbooks and horrible school education assist in preparing a new army of rapists and their victims. However, after the Feminnale and the “March on 8th March,” I do not believe that anything can be changed in our countries.

Author

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Diana T. Kudaibergenova

Diana T. Kudaibergenova is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the UKRI GCRF “COMPASS” project at the University of Cambridge. She studies different intersections of power relations through realms of political sociology dealing with concepts of state, nationalizing regimes and ideologies. Her first book, Rewriting the Nation in Modern Kazakh literature (Lexington, 2017) deals with the study of nationalism, modernization and cultural development in modern Kazakhstan. Her second book, Toward Nationalizing Regimes is based on her doctoral research and focuses on the rise of nationalizing regimes in post-Soviet space after 1991 with prime focus on power struggles among the political and cultural elites in democratic and non-democratic states (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020).

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, Central Asian contemporary artists are coming up with new digital opportunities. The private Facebook group “Art Bazar” now has more than 700 members, and more than 100 contemporary art works have been sold in its first month of existence.

These are the the stories of survival, economic and artistic opportunities, and creative solutions that led to this digital community.

I wake up to Facebook notifications and calls from a friend: Astana-based contemporary art curator Aigerim Kapar is calling me and sending messages. “Hurry, Valery Ruppel has listed his Political Botanic series, it’s going to go fast!” The new digital community of the Facebook-based Art Bazar is buzzing with messages and “WOW” impressions. It’s true; Valery Ruppel, the renowned Bishkek-based artist, has listed his long-anticipated series for anyone to buy online. It is time for all the collectors to gather and offer their bids for the unique series on Political Botanical art – the legendary series that few art collectors possess, and many are hungry to find. These are the paintings of red tulips in forms of fists—gestures to freedom and hope—all dedicated to the commemoration of the 2005 Kyrgyz Tulip Revolution. Both the revolution and Ruppel’s listing online are historic events, perhaps the last opportunity to own the famous, politically minded art work. It is time to hurry.

Art Bazar: the beginning

Ever since the opening of the Art Bazar in April 2020 as a way to sell, exchange, and raise awareness about local contemporary art, it has become a phenomenon of its own. Without large exhibitions, museum halls, and auctions, the Bazar offers a unique digital meeting space for sellers, buyers, and appreciators of art. Within the first month of existence, it has already surpassed the expectations of the group’s administrators—Bishkek-based artists Meder Akhmetov, Darina Manasbek, and curator Philipp Reichmuth—who envisioned the Bazar as a way to keep local artists afloat during the global pandemic and the financial fragilities that have followed the crisis. For art collectors, it became a paradise form of the art marketplace and hunting ground for unique contemporary art buys. The group follows the tropes of a similar Facebook group set up in Russia—the “Ball and the Cross” (Шар и Крест)—envisioned as a “socially-oriented” group to help out artists. Yet Art Bazar is not just a marketplace for artists to sell or exchange their works. Collectors, curators, and art-minded people all around the world are sleepless, awaiting for new listings to appear in the group.

Every day, renowned Central Asian artists and globally known producers of art have listed their works in an attempt to keep the Bazar going, keeping the buyers anxious and alert on Facebook at all times of day across different time zones. Olga Veselova, Almaty-based art curator and one of the co-organisers of the ArtBat Public Art festival, even compared Art Bazart to the “hot pirozhki” selling space where everything is sold too fast. And the audience is thirsty for more.

Art curators themselves are in a state of shock. Art Bazar, a mere Facebook group, was able to achieve what took years to build—and it has created a viable art market and a space where curators and art collectors alike can discover new names and new artists, as new art collections are sometimes formed within days. All of that without a single attempt to either institutionalize art or put it in a physical space. The digital revolution is here, others say.

And surprisingly, the global pandemic has provided this window of opportunity for new initiatives in Central Asia’s contemporary art field. This is the art field that has suffered from lack of funding, space, and state support; until now, there has not been a single working contemporary art museum in the region that has been able to provide such a variety of exciting names to the global contemporary art movement.

Lack of Market or Emerging Markets?

In 2011, Kazakh contemporary art anthropologist Zhanara Nauruzbayeva signaled some of the important trends that were forming in market for contemporary art in Central Asia, where the shift from Socialist Realist art production as a form of state propaganda, lack of support, and censorship left many artists without a viable infrastructure or market. They were now faced with the necessity of forming their own markets and learning the post-Soviet language of dealing contemporary art. The advent of contemporary art production sparked a push for new forms, themes, and ways of expressions for those who were willing to engage in the “underground” and move away from the stale Artists’ Unions in their respective states. Nauruzbayeva conceptualized how the art market for new forms of contemporary art in post-socialist Central Asia now found itself needing not only to produce “socially-minded” art but also engage in capitalist marketization. For years, Central Asian art was an “exotic” treasury hunt for international collectors and expats living in the region. For years, local artists and curators lamented the fact that “local” art grew more toward “Westernization” and was rarely welcomed at home. Art Bazar, however, signals a trend of returning to localization, and there is a growing thirst for buying and collecting art at “home”—in Central Asia.

In Kazakhstan, Sergei Maslov and Rustam Khalfin (both deceased) emerged in the 1990s as the “Fathers of Contemporary Art,” with performances and paintings that continuously haunt and impress new generations of contemporary artists in the region. As art historian and curator Aliya Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen writes in her 2016 book, Central Asia in Art. From Soviet Orientalism to the New Republics:

Vyacheslav Akhunov, Almagul Menlibayeva, and Yerbossyn Meldibekov followed these themes in exploring new forms and engaging in contemporary art, and these names are now in the golden book of Central Asia’s contemporary art. So are the names of Askhat Akhmediyarov, Viktor and Elena Vorobiev, Ulan Dzhaparov, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, Saule Suleimenovf, Kuanysh Bazargaliev, and Valery Ruppel. Their works are widely known abroad and carefully stacked in private collections which, until now, had been outside of Central Asia.

Art Bazar has proven the success almost a decade later. Within the first three weeks of its online existence, the virtual group has attracted more than 700 members and, according to its administrators, sold 130 art work—most of which were sold to collectors and buyers outside the artistic production field. It means that even though artists are collecting their fellow artists’ friends works and forming important collections of sketches and legendary works, Central Asian contemporary art is gaining value for buyers who are not artists themselves. Academics and established collectors alike are drawn into the virtual group, ready to wire money for iconic art works, even though the dispatch of the art works themselves will have to wait until the lockdown is eased and borders are re-opened for shipping worldwide. The market is thriving, and money is flowing across Central Asian states on global virtual payment wires—globalization at its best.

Why Central Asian contemporary art? Why now?

What makes Central Asian contemporary art significant in its own time is its impactful way of capturing moments in history, keeping the epoch of post-Sovietness and post-independence stuck on canvas, prints, photos, and videos, and within captured performances. Their way of expression is free from the previous state propaganda or censoring services, whereas their dialogues with the society remain open and wide. Historical events such as the 2005 Tulip Revolution have a great impact on the ways old-school artists re-think this reality and the ways in which new art groups appear—most notably seen with Bishkek-based art collective Group 705. And these initiatives no longer depend solely on formalized methods of engagement and exposure; the lack of exhibit halls, museums, and art fairs has pushed them to the never-ending underground—but also to the public art that thrives. This is what allows Valery Ruppel’s “New Forms of Tulips or Political Botanic” to become a legendary and impactful series that every collector was secretly hoping to purchase one day. This is what has created the heightened value of Saule Suleimenova’s 1986-1990 series of portraits, which had never been publicly exposed before but are now actively sold at the Art Bazar online.

Since the first day of its online existence, Art Bazar has been buzzing with sellers and buyers—just like a real Central Asian bazar—with numerous comments and side-discussions, agreements for financial and barter-based exchange, and questions addressed and answered. The artists themselves are scattered across all five states of Central Asia, though the most active buyers and sellers (just like the contemporary art field itself) mainly come from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan—as well as from Russia. The Kyrgyz som has become the new internationally minded currency for exchange online, and non-Kyrgyz residents have learned to compare prices and convert from Kyrgyz som to Kazakh tenge, Uzbek som, US dollars, and euros almost overnight. Now, no one at the Art Bazar even questions the base of this financial exchange, and prices from 2,000 to 10,000 Kyrgyz som have become the new “normal” for most buyers and sellers. After all, most of the works listed on the Art Bazar go for half of their real value on the normal art market or the price set by the galleries. In this light, Said Atabekov’s classical photographs from the “Way to Rome” or “We are from Shymkent”—which every art collector dreamt of having in their collection—finally became affordable.

First generation Bishkek-based art curator and architect Ulan Dzhaparov even produced a “manuscript” of an ode to 500 Kyrgyz som, which was sold for this symbolic price to capture the moment of the 2020 quarantine epoch. He writes:

“in the usual practice (the most successful) artists mainly used [US] dollars and Euro while selling their work (mostly abroad and in rare occasions in their own homelands) with a minimal change in the price within 100 USD/Euro, and seldomly with the change of 50 [Euro/USD]. Gallery prices or commonly accepted prices of the international art markets were usually unaffordable for the not so rich local audience and [before] it left many art appreciators and buyers outside [the market threshold].

I can’t remember anyone pricing their works with 27 USD or 128 [USD]… [artists] did not pay attention to small things.

Quarantine, pandemic and the lockdown regime made many [artists] face the choice – the survival instinct or leaning towards art, own self-development and self-realization. I think introducing the minimal price threshold of 500 [Kyrgyz] som at the Art Bazar is a great luck and a revolutionary step…

500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, 4000… som are the basic units of count. If we take it in USD, then [it becomes] 7, 14, 20, etc. [USD].

One can buy quite serious [art] works for 50 USD at the Art Bazar (50 USD being the usual price inaccuracy in the usual [art] trade), and these works usually cost you 3-5 times more [the present price of 50 USD]. The difference [in price] is not great but it connects the process of trade to our reality.

500 [Kyrgyz] som can allow you to shop for the necessary products (for a small family) for two days.

1000 [Kyrgyz] som – [would allow you to do the same] for 4 days…

Due to the initial democratic bar for the price of the work set by the Bazarcom and the moderators and due to the social and only half-commercial function of the Art Bazar allowed all of its participants to find a small niche where their interests intersect and the price for the mistake [in pricing] is not that great but the benefit from selling/buying is immediately great.

500 som reminds me of the “Central Asian brick” made of the slighty dried and flat adobe (saman) that built most of the main constructions in Central Asia.”

Local art curators are in awe: the art revolution happened overnight and without the usual, formal instruments they thought it required.

Every day, new and young artists post their listings. Every day, collectors and those who understood the mechanisms of the Art Bazar impatiently check their Facebook app on their phones, computers, and other devices. Works are sold too fast, and there are hundreds of additional online bidders waiting impatiently for the artwork to become available.

There are various factors influencing this success story that took a long time to form. Art Bazar moderators set rules in place: all art works should not exceed 20,000 Kyrgyz soms in total (roughly 250 USD), and every seller who exceeds 10 sales has to donate one of their works to the Art Bazar foundation for further exhibition and auction. All sellers keep their books public: every artist who sells up to or more than 10 works must list their audit and mention which of their works they are donating to the Art Bazar foundation. More than 4-5 artists do so weekly in the group, which signals Art Bazar’s huge success, even when compared to previous successful charity art auctions and private sales. Artists who list their works are also allowed to exchange their works with other artists. There is no fee for the facilitators of the Bazar. And most importantly, the work is sold on a “first come, first served” basis, which has prompted the “hot pirozhki” analogy of the fast-selling nature of the market.

The treasure hunt goes on…

In the first month of its existence, the Art Bazar revealed such gems as Dilyara Kaipova’s early drawings and sketches, Darina Manasbek’s and Anna Ivanova’s artistic diaries in quarantine, new young artists like Aruzhan Zhumabek and Moldir Sagindikova, Meder Akhmetov’s new art form in his series “uyatki” (from the “uyat” as shame in Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek languages), old works by Elena and Viktor Vorobiev and Ulan Dzhaparov’s unique archive, and Askhat Akhmediyarov’s sketches, to name the few.

Among the works offered at the Art Bazar, there are also a lot of variations on the current COVID-19 lockdown and quarantine all over the world—and in Central Asia itself. Political contemporary artist Askhat Akhmediyarov offers his practical exhibit object: a mask that is not a mask, but a silencing instrument. Darina Manasbek posts art in the form of quarantine diaries that tell of the endless routine and creeping depression. Yet, in the flourishing of the Art Bazar there is hope; after all, the art market that most commentators in the field predicted would amount to nothing but further internationalisation has now become a local—though digital—form of exchange, trust network, and incredible collecting excitement. Long live the Central Asian Art Bazar!

Interview with

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Thibaut de Ruyter is a French architect, curator, and critic. His latest projects include a traveling exhibition for the Goethe Institute in Eastern Europe and Central Asia entitled “die grenze” (with Inke Arns, MMOMA, Moscow 2017 – Artplay, Saint Petersburg 2017 – Krasnoyarsk Museum Center, Krasnoyarsk 2017, Kasteev Museum, Almaty 2018 and other venues) while his exhibition, “A Song for Europe,” was presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London in 2017. His interests are based on new media and their archeology; the relationship between art and architecture (mostly through a criticism of modernity); and, in the past five years, the artistic scene in post-Soviet countries, particularly in Central Asia.

 http://www.thibautderuyter.com/

Can you describe the contemporary art scene in Central Asia? What kind of picture does it provide, and what drives you to engage with the contemporary arts in Central Asia?

Well, to begin, I would like to try to avoid the use of the term “Central Asia.” I have been traveling, observing, and studying this region since 2014, and I have to admit that I don’t see many links between the art of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. The political, economic, and social context is much too different in each country to speak about one single “contemporary art scene” from Central Asia. The local contexts are diverse, and the artists reflect that diversity.

The Central Asian countries shared a recent past under the Soviet Union during most of the 20^th century and, pretty often, artists refer to that time by depicting figures like Lenin or questioning history. But the Central Asian countries got their independence in the early 1990s! It’s been almost 30 years, and 30 years is an entire generation. The young artists that I met in the region have more to do with the Internet and post-Internet, gender studies, globalization, and neoliberalism than the Soviet past. Many of them speak perfect English, and Russian is not a lingua franca anymore. For sure, all of these countries are still very young, and it’s natural that they “search for an identity,” but it might be time to move on from questions that were highly important when these countries gained their independence but slowly lost their relevance because of brand new geopolitical influences (I will mention China later).

Now, as a curator born and based in Europe, my discovery and encounter with Central Asia was an amazing moment and turning point in my life. After years and years of studying, visiting museums or galleries, and doing projects in the West, I suddenly realized how much the world and art history are more complex than the way I learned it. My Euro-centric perception was narrow-minded and blindfolded. A lot of Central Asian artists play with traditions and identity, and they refer to their country and their everyday life—while in Europe, many artists simply refer to their ancestors, to the artists that have come before them. I couldn’t look at artworks in Central Asia by simply mentioning Marcel Duchamp or the Dadaists; I had to understand that another history and art history happened there. This was a great pleasure because, in the end, it broke all my certainties about my own personal relationship with art. It changed my perception and understanding of where I come from.

In 2015, you curated the “ALUAN” Kazakh art magazine. How many issues have been published? Are you going to get engaged with more publications in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries?

ALUAN was invented and initiated by the great Kazakh artist Gaisha Madanova. Her original statement was simple: there are no art magazines and no art centers in Kazakhstan, so let’s try to put both in one—to make a publication that is an “exhibition on paper.” I really loved her idea, and that is why I accepted her offer to curate it. But I refused to approach it as an exhibition about Kazakhstan. When I visited the country, I spent a lot of time in the former capital, Almaty, and made a quick visit to Astana (it was in 2014, and Astana was still called Astana). When I approached that exhibition, I had to admit that I knew nothing about Kazakhstan—that I had only seen the steppe from the window of an airplane. That’s why the exhibition I curated for ALUAN took Almaty and the art scene from Almaty as a focus. I refused to use clichés and fulfill expectations, and the exhibition showed that Kazakhstan is not only about nomads on horses in the desert, it is also about beautiful cities with a complex history.

Here, in Europe, we regularly get to see exhibitions about “art in …”, the only common denominator for the artists being their nationality and passport. I think this national (and sometimes even nationalist) approach is wrong. Because at the end it’s all about clichés (the steppe in Kazakhstan, ak-kalpak in Kyrgystan, or ikat in Uzbekistan) and not about the reality of art. But such an approach makes it simple for sponsors: the embassies see art as a way of promoting their country abroad and culture becomes an instrument for advertising tourism.

Now, to be honest, there are not enough publications about art in Central Asian countries. Any kind of publications! It’s very difficult to get reliable information, and one mostly collects bits and pieces via the Internet (and therefore very doubtful sources). We need more monographs about the 20th century masters; we need more books and small publications about the young generation; we need more critical texts, essays, and interviews; and, last but not least, more regular pieces of information about exhibitions, events, and festivals. A lot of people use Facebook to publish texts, but Facebook is like a never-ending flushing toilet, and what I see there today will already be long gone tomorrow. Printed matter stays and is used as a reference.

At the moment I also support the online magazine Transitory White — www.transitorywhite.com — a young initiative that explores the former Soviet countries without linking or connecting them with their past.

Can you tell us about the exhibition “Borders” that put together artists from Central Asia and Europe? What goals did you pursue and what outcomes did the exhibition achieve?

The title of the exhibition was “The Border” not “Borders,” because it focused on the border between Asia and Europe, a border that is very difficult to read and perceive—a border that you cross without a passport or a visa. Have you ever been to Vladivostok? It’s one of the most European and Russian cities I’ve ever seen! The exhibition was initiated by the Goethe-Institute, which wanted a presentation of art from Eastern-Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia around the topic of borders… But if you speak about the borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia, between Ukraine and Russia, inside of the Fergana Valley, or with China, you start to speak only about historical, political or economical conflicts, not about art and culture. That’s why we (I co-curated the exhibition with Inke Arns) decided to focus on the presence and existence of Asia and Europe in the whole region and worked along that single border. By the way, have you ever noticed that all the small shops in Almaty are selling Korean kimchi? That Baku has plenty of karaokes to go out in the evening? That a lot of old people in Moscow possess decorative Pialas at home?

The great achievement with the exhibition was, for me, the fact that we had artists from most of the former Soviet countries without linking them to their Soviet past—but with a very timely issue (China is becoming more and more influential in Central Asia, a “New Silk Road” is being built, etc.). But we also had artists living in Europe in the exhibition, artists from Turkey, France, and Germany. Therefore, it was not another “national” exhibition, but a larger approach of a territory that allowed us to show that artists today have a global understanding of the world and of art history. The exhibition existed because it had a serious and important topic, not just because it was a national or regional manifestation. Contemporary art is not a Eurovision song contest!

What is your vision for the development of contemporary art in Central Asia?

What will I suggest for the development of contemporary art? The answer is simple: More. More exhibitions, more independent spaces for art, more books, more catalogues, more magazines, more museums, more grants, more conferences, more lectures, more schools, more summer academies, more sales in the private branch, and more public money to support initiatives, more collectors, more education, more artists, more events and more quality in the making… A city like Tashkent, today, has only two serious commercial art galleries (ZeroLine and Bonum Factum), Kazakhstan has three (Aspan, Esentai and TSE), while a city like Berlin already has more than 300! And the struggle for existence from those galleries is simply tragic, they manage to survive but their future is totally uncertain. The art market is only one example and, as I said before, all the countries from Central Asia need more publications, any kind of publication…

From my side, I’m interested in supporting any kind of initiative that will help the development as long as it will make sense. Because one thing is essential here: you need more, but it doesn’t mean that you have to copy the existing models from the West! It is not because every city on Earth now has a Biennial that you need Biennials in Dushanbe, Shymkent, or Samarkand. You have to be proud of your history and specificities; you need to find specific formats and original ways of promoting contemporary art in countries that are not even 30 years old yet and where most of the public (not to mention the politicians) is not ready yet. I see it as an amazing challenge, it will probably take another generation to exist properly, but the art and artists I see in your countries are hundreds of times more exciting and less cynical than what I see on a daily basis in Berlin or Paris.

Interviewer: Lolisanam Ulugova

Lolisanam has been an art manager in Tajikistan since 2000. She has contributed to writing and producing the nation’s first 3-D animation film, a short designed to promote awareness of environmental issues among children. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Turin, Italy and an undergraduate degree in Russian Language and Literature. She was a Global Cultural Fellow at the Institute for International Cultural Relations at the University of Edinburgh and participated in the Central Asian-Azerbaijan (CAAFP) fellowship program at the George Washington University at Elliott School of International Affairs for Fall 2019.