Kazakh Art - The Times Of Central Asia

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Art and Culture

Central Asia Steps Out of the Post-Soviet Shadow

Central Asia is rarely presented on its own terms. It is more often viewed through exterior lenses like Russian imperial memory, Chinese reach, Silk Road romance, or great-power rivalry. The result is a region made to look secondary to the forces around it, even as its five countries carry deep histories, distinct languages, and identities that cannot be reduced to a backdrop. That old frame is starting to crack. Central Asia is finding new ways to tell its own story. The shift goes beyond tourism or national branding. It is about who gets to define the region, which is still too often seen through the things done to it or extracted from it. Culture depicts the other side of that narrative, a place that has shaped history, not merely endured it, with traditions and ideas that have long carried influence far beyond its borders. [caption id="attachment_49147" align="aligncenter" width="2048"] Sky above Almaty: Qandy Qantar; image courtesy of Saule Suleimenova[/caption] Kazakhstan offers one visible example. The Almaty Museum of Arts opened on September 12, 2025, adding a major institution for modern and contemporary art. Its arrival builds on a broader shift in which private galleries, international platforms, and artists such as Aigerim Karibayeva and Saule Suleimenova are moving Kazakh art beyond folkloric shorthand toward identity, postcolonial memory, and urban life. The reopening of the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture, in a former Soviet-era cinema, adds a sharper symbolic layer. A building once tied to Soviet public culture has become a platform for modern Central Asian voices, reflecting a scene increasingly rethinking nomadism rather than simply reproducing it. [caption id="attachment_49148" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image: The Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture[/caption] Uzbekistan has made culture central to its international reemergence. The inaugural Bukhara Biennial brought contemporary art into a city more often seen through its monuments, turning madrasas and caravanserais into exhibition spaces for Uzbek and world artists. The same push is visible in the Tashkent Centre for Contemporary Art, Uzbekistan’s presence at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and design projects such as When Apricots Blossom, which link heritage, craft, and the environmental disaster of the Aral Sea. Artists such as Oyjon Khayrullaeva show a younger generation reworking Islamic ornament, textiles, and public space into new visual languages. At the same time, the State Museum of Karakalpakstan in Nukus, with its Soviet-era censored works, gives the country’s art history deeper heft. In Tashkent, the Islamic Civilization Center is working on a different scale. Recognized by Guinness World Records in 2026 as the largest museum of Islamic civilization, it gives Uzbekistan a stronger role in shaping how that legacy is understood today. [caption id="attachment_49146" align="aligncenter" width="2048"] Image courtesy of Oyjon Khayrullaeva[/caption] Kyrgyzstan’s confidence rests on different ground. The sixth World Nomad Games are scheduled for August 31 to September 6, 2026, with events in Bishkek and around Issyk-Kul. That gives Kyrgyzstan a stage for living nomadic traditions, not a static museum display of them. Its contemporary art scene adds a more intimate layer, with artists such as...

Kazakh Art

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken: The Art of Saule Suleimenova

“I’m a very emotional person,” says artist Saule Suleimenova with a bright, open laugh from her home studio in Almaty. Widely recognized as one of the most significant Kazakh artists working today, Suleimenova’s spontaneity and passion emerge clearly as the artist lightens up when talking about the joy and necessity of making work, when she excavates memories of the early days of making art, or when suddenly, she grows gloomy, remembering some of the most painful moments in the history of her country. Behind her back stands a large canvas, where translucent elements, almost resembling stained glass from a distance, slowly reveal themselves as fragments of discarded plastic bags fused together through heat and a whole lot of patience. Born in 1970, Suleimenova has developed a practice that spans painting, drawing, photography, and public art, consistently navigating the delicate and often hard to define boundary between personal memory and collective history: “I feel my personal life can’t be detached from politics and everything that happens around me,” she says, embodying, in a way, a motto from the seventies: “the personal is political.” Suleimenova was an early member of the Green Triangle Group, an experimental artist collective known for its avant-garde and punk-influenced art, which emerged during the Perestroika era and the collapse of the USSR, playing a significant role in revolutionizing contemporary art in Kazakhstan. Today, she is working mostly with archives, vernacular imagery, and the visual language of contemporary urban space. In her work, she investigates how narratives are formed, distorted, and even rewritten over time, particularly within the historical and political context of Kazakhstan. An example is her ongoing series, Cellophane Paintings, composed entirely from used plastic bags, transforming everyday waste into luminous, layered pictorial fields that hold together subjects as vast as socio-political trauma, from the Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, human rights violations, Karlag, one of the largest Gulag labor camps, and the Uyghur genocide. Those heavy themes are associated with some that are more intimate: family members, flowers, and cityscapes. Suleimenova is currently participating in the Union of Artists at the Center of Modern Culture Tselinny in Almaty (15 January – 19 April 2026), curated by Vladislav Sludsky, an exhibition reflecting on artistic partnerships as systems of survival in a region where art historically survived through shared spaces and personal alliances between artists, rather than institutional support. The Times of Central Asia spoke to Suleimenova about memory, material, and the ways personal experience and political history converge in her art. [caption id="attachment_42718" align="aligncenter" width="2500"] From the series, One Step Forward[/caption] TCA: Your recent work at the Bukhara Biennial, Portraits of the people of Bukhara, was made from polyethylene bags collected by the community itself. Can you tell me how your work on this project took shape? Suleimenova: From the beginning, the work was meant to be collaborative with local artists or artisans rather than something already finished and brought from outside. I decided to collaborate with a folk ensemble of Bukhara women - the retired performers...

Kazakh Art

Beyond the Yurt: Rethinking Nomadism in Kazakh Contemporary Art

At a moment when Kazakhstan is building new cultural institutions and asking bigger questions about what contemporary art should do, one curator has been quietly learning how power, taste, and narrative are shaped inside major museums. Akmaral Kulbatyrova, the first representative of Kazakhstan to receive the U.S.-based ArtTable Fellowship, spent 2025 working in the Exhibitions and Curatorial Projects Department at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, gaining rare inside access to how global exhibitions are conceived and positioned. Her work sits at the intersection of institutional practice and cultural repair, focused on reframing nomadic culture, Central Asian heritage, and Kazakh craft not as static tradition but as a current language. Akmaral’s experience links ambition and execution, showing how local histories can enter international spaces without being flattened. In this interview with The Times of Central Asia, we asked her what comes next. TCA: Nomadic imagery has become central to Kazakhstan’s national identity since independence. How are contemporary artists reshaping these symbols, and why does that matter for how the country sees itself today? AK: Kazakh contemporary artists briefly challenged Kazakh art in early avant-garde experiments in the 1960s. However, it stopped because of the huge presence of Socialist Realism, which was one of the movements where symbols like horses and yurts prevailed. Most of the contemporary artists reshape not the symbols; they reimagine nomadic culture, contextualizing pre-Soviet culture through researching how it changed over time. Many artists look back to pre-Soviet nomadic practices to explore how these traditions were disrupted by colonial and Soviet policies, yet continue to influence Kazakh identity today. By using installation, performance, and video, they move beyond decoration and folklore to show nomadism as a living culture rather than a museum image or symbols. This matters because it helps Kazakhstan see itself not through simplified national symbols, but as a society shaped by change, cultural mixing, and an ongoing negotiation between past and present. [caption id="attachment_42899" align="aligncenter" width="1536"] Qyz Zhibek, designed by Nikolai Vladimirovich Tsivchinsky and Moldakhmet Syzdykovich Kenbaev, 1971; image: TCA[/caption] TCA: Nomadism now circulates widely in pop culture, often detached from its historical meaning. Why does contemporary art provide a more critical way to examine what nomadic identity represents? AK: It’s typical that symbolic images prevail in pop culture, especially for countries that have not experienced a long artistic tradition. It is one of the ways to be acknowledged by the privileged cultures through the symbols that are easy to recognize and quickly signal national identity. In Kazakhstan, these images became important after independence, as they cover the main question of cultural uniqueness after colonial influence. Contemporary art takes slower and more contextual approaches rather than easy recognition. That’s why most modern scholars criticize symbolic language and would like to see art that explores unresolved histories and how nations were challenged or used their experience to construct their identity. [caption id="attachment_42900" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Anvar Musrepov, IKEA KZ; image courtesy of the Aspan Gallery[/caption] TCA: Many artists use nomadic motifs with irony rather...

Art and Culture

A Breakout Year for Contemporary Art in Kazakhstan

The year 2025 marked not only a busy period for contemporary art in Kazakhstan but also a decisive acceleration. Art moved beyond professional circles, claimed urban spaces, entered international agendas, and ceased to be a conversation “for insiders only.” The Kazakhstani art scene spoke with growing confidence both at home and abroad. New institutions, landmark exhibitions, festivals, and global collaborations signaled a pivotal shift: contemporary art has become a visible and integral component of the country’s cultural fabric. New Museums and Art Spaces in Kazakhstan Geographically, Almaty emerged as the epicenter of contemporary art activity in 2025. The city saw the opening of key institutions that became new focal points for artists, curators, and audiences. Opening of the Almaty Museum of Arts (ALMA) On September 12, 2025, the Almaty Museum of Arts (ALMA) opened its doors in Almaty, becoming one of the largest contemporary art museums in Central Asia. From the outset, ALMA signaled serious institutional ambitions, with a mission to support and study contemporary art processes and situate them within a global cultural context. The museum’s collection includes around 700 works, more than 70% of which are by notable Kazakhstani artists of the 20th century, such as Zhanatai Shardenov, Tokbolat Togyzbayev, Makym Kisameddinov, and Shaimardan Sariyev. Contemporary artists like Rustem Khalfin, Saule Suleimenova, and Said Atabekov are also prominently featured. Designed by the British architectural bureau Chapman Taylor, the 10,000-square-meter museum includes expansive exhibition halls (“The Great Steppe,” “Saryarka”), an Art Street atrium, storage and restoration facilities, and a creative workshop, setting a new standard for museum infrastructure in the region. [caption id="attachment_42431" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Installation view of "I Understand Everything" – Almagul Menlibayeva (12 September 2025 - May 2026), Almaty Museum of Arts; image: Alexey Naroditsky[/caption] Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture: Reclaiming a Building and Its Meaning Just days earlier, on September 5, 2025, the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture was inaugurated in Almaty. Housed in a restored 1964 Soviet-era cinema, the building underwent nearly seven years of renovation led by British architect Asif Khan. Notably, the facade’s unique sgraffito by artist Evgeny Sidorkin was preserved. The transformed space now features an exhibition hall, library, cafe, and workshop areas. Its opening was marked by the performance BARSAKELMES, with initial public access free of charge. Tselinny now operates three days a week and serves as a vital platform for exhibitions, education, and creative dialogue. [caption id="attachment_42433" align="aligncenter" width="2400"] The Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture; image: SAPARLAS/Zhanarbek Amankulov[/caption] A. Kasteev State Museum of Arts: A New Status and Contemporary Focus Kazakhstan’s primary national art institution also redefined its role in 2025. Celebrating its 90th anniversary, the A. Kasteev State Museum of Arts was granted National Museum status. In conjunction with this milestone, a new gallery dedicated to contemporary Kazakhstani art from the independence period was unveiled. The exhibition Memory. Space. Progress brought together works from leading artists, charting the development of artistic practice from the 1990s to the present. Contributors included members of the Shymkent-based Red Tractor group, Almaty conceptualists,...

Almaty Museum of Arts

Kazakhstan’s Cultural Reawakening: Almaty Opens Its New Museum of Arts

First, a young Kazakh schoolgirl in a black dress with a starched collar, her hair tousled by the wind of the Aral Sea, clutches a large Russian book tightly to her chest as she stands before a lonely school building in the middle of nowhere. Then, a camel speaks: “Give me back the sea!” “No!” cries a woman, her face hidden beneath a military hat. She stands before an abandoned edifice, her head wrapped in fur, her body strangely adorned with eggs. [caption id="attachment_36257" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Image: Almagul Menlibayeva[/caption] This series of surreal images is from the video Transoxiana Dream, by one of Central Asia’s pioneering contemporary artists, Almagul Menlibayeva. The Times of Central Asia attended her major solo show, I Understand Everything, curated by Thai curator Gritiya Gaweewong, a powerful exploration of memory, trauma, and identity, which provides the “treble clef” for the opening of the Almaty Museum of Arts. The show brings together works spanning decades, from Menlibayeva’s early paintings and collages in the 1980s, to her recent internationally recognized video and photography works. Through a variety of mediums, she charts the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ecological devastation of Kazakhstan, and suppressed cultural memory. [caption id="attachment_36258" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Almagul Menlibayeva, People Talking against a Blue Background, 1988; image: Almaty Museum of Arts[/caption] As always in her practice, the feminine and feminist narratives are at the forefront. Menlibayeva’s women are at times bound with nature or with military rule, alternately merciful or merciless. Her works tackle ecological concerns, tying them directly to the destruction of patriarchy. “For us, opening our program with Menlibayeva’s show was highly significant,” says Meruyert Kaliyeva, the museum’s artistic director. “She is a pioneering Central Asian artist who is known internationally but at the same time has always dealt with topics and themes that are important locally.” A New Museum in Almaty The inauguration of the Almaty Museum of Arts represents a decisive step in shaping Kazakhstan’s creative future. As the country’s first large-scale contemporary art museum, it houses over 700 works collected across three decades, offering a panoramic view of modern Kazakh art while opening pathways to Central Asian and international dialogues. [caption id="attachment_36265" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Almaty Museum of Arts; image: Alexey Poptsov[/caption] Its mission extends beyond exhibitions: the institution positions itself as a center for education, research, and collaboration, aiming to nurture local artists and connect them to global networks. For Kazakhstan, long without a dedicated contemporary art museum, this moment signals a new era, one in which cultural identity is asserted with confidence, and the arts are recognized as a vital force for national memory as well as international visibility. Kaliyeva emphasizes how essential it is that Kazakh artists now have a platform where voices once peripheral to national culture can take center stage. She also stresses the urgency of the moment: in a world reshaped by geopolitical fractures, climate crises, and cultural decolonization, this opening is necessary: “It’s a moment for Kazakhstan to assert its own narratives, to host...

Central Asian Art

Central Asian Perspectives Take Center Stage in Milan

A pale Milanese dawn draped the city in shifting greys, as visitors crossed the threshold into the space of Fondazione Elpis, a foundation created to promote dialogue with emerging geographies and young artists. This time, it was Central Asian artists who were in the spotlight, claiming a shared history fractured by Soviet rule and global currents. The show YOU ARE HERE: Central Asia redraws a regional map, allowing artists to redraw the borders of their belonging beyond nation-states. At the same time, it invites each visitor to relate to the works by locating its place within these stitched, erased, and reconfigured narratives. Curators Dilda Ramazan and Aida Sulova orchestrated twenty-seven artists into a living constellation: from Munara Abdukakharova’s rolled patchwork, its golden hammer-and-sickle motifs softened by the hand-stitched curves of Kyrgyz kurak korpe, to Vyacheslav Akhunov’s furious erasures of scraped notes, the show reassembled in unexpected patterns stories of resilience, resistance, and reimagined belonging. YOU ARE HERE not only reframed Central Asia for a European audience but asserted that the region’s histories are neither static nor singular, they are stitched, erased, reconfigured, and claimed anew by the very people who live them. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Kazakh curator, Dilda Ramazan. [caption id="attachment_31541" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] "YOU ARE HERE. Central Asia", installation view, primo piano, Fondazione Elpis, Milano © Fabrizio Vatieri Studio[/caption] TCA: Can you tell us about the genesis of the show? The show emerged after the invitation of the Fondazione Elpis, whose founder, Marina Nissim, became interested in the region and its artists after seeing one of the Central Asian pavilions at the Venice Biennale. By presenting the complex Central Asian landscape to a European public who might not know it very well, we wanted to give artists the platform for free expression without framing the region from the stereotypical perspective, as is often the case in the Western context. We wanted the artists to reflect on the idea of space and belonging through the idea of locating oneself. TCA: Do you feel there is a growing awareness of Central Asia in Europe? Yes, I can feel and see it, but it is a natural process one should expect within the logic of globalization. The exhibition addressed the impact of Soviet and post-Soviet transitions on the cultural identities of Central Asian nations by showcasing artists of several generations. Some of them had a direct experience of living under the Soviet regime, so again the artists spoke for themselves and the region’s past through their works. [caption id="attachment_31542" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Emil Tilekov, Traces and Shadows, 2024 © Fabrizio Vatieri Studio[/caption] TCA: How is the theme of migration explored in the exhibition, particularly concerning its economic and emotional implications for Central Asian communities? Migration was one of the key aspects evoked in the show because it is still an experience lived by the artists and/or their relatives and families. Two Kyrgyz artists, for example, raised this issue in their projects. This was the case in the video by Chingiz...