ASTANA (TCA) — The first exhibition of the large-scale project of the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan “Focus Kazakhstan” has opened in London with the support of the Kazakh Ministry of Culture and Sports, which will be held until October 16, 2018, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reports.
The exhibition “Postnomadic horizons” was prepared by 33 artists who use the modern language of postmodernism and work in various art media such as painting, photography, sculpture, installation and video.
The exhibition considers modern art of Kazakhstan in the form of dialogues between contemporary artists and their Soviet predecessors, who reflect on the concept of post-nomadism through art.
The curators of the exhibition — Indira Duissebayeva and Aliya De Tiesenhausen — suggest to consider the situation of the Kazakh art history in the context of the world trends, as well as the Kazakh society in the context of globalization. In the exhibition space there are parallel dialogues of artists with their predecessors of the Soviet period, and at the same time an analysis of the gradual de-sovietization of consciousness.
As noted by Aliya De Tiesenhausen, the Soviet period served as the final eradication of the nomadic way of life, and the period of globalization, now experienced, also affects the still preserved nomadic memory — traditions and culture.
“The concept of post-nomadism makes reference to the nomadic past, associated with Kazakhstan, and actively reflected both by artists of the Soviet period and contemporaries. Post-Mind Consciousness is a literal translation of the English name of the exhibition. In this context, the word ‘consciousness’ defines a departure from the visual stereotypes associated with our country and the desire to analyze the work of artists under both conscious and subconscious processing of the past and the present,” she said.
According to the curators of the exhibition, the works presented are some kind of questions posed by the artists to the viewer about different roles that the viewer plays as a subject or object of nationalism, traditionalism, consumerism, feminism, postcolonialism and post-nomadism.
The exhibition will run until October 16 at The Wapping Project: 37 Wapping Wall, St Katharine’s & Wapping.
