Central Asian Pavilion
55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
WINTER
Credits & Information
Curators: Tiago Bom and Ayatgali Tuleubek
Artistic Advisor: Susanne M. Winterling
Commissioner: HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation)
Deputy Commissioner/Implementing Institution:
The Academy of Fine Art/Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Dean Vanessa Ohlraun
Project Coordinator in Central Asia: Yekaterina Serebryanaya
Venice Coordinator: Andris Brinkmanis.
Press and Communication: BUREAU N
Graphic Design: v-a · studio
VENUE
Palazzo Malipiero
San Marco 3079, 1st floor
Venice, Italy
(Vaporetto station: San Samuele)
OPENING HOURS
Preview days: 29 – 31 May 2013, 10am – 8pm
June 1 – November 24, 2013: Tue - Sun 10am – 6pm
(Closed on Mondays, not 3rd June and 18th November)
For press related inquiries, please contact:
BUREAU N cultural communications
Julia Albani, Helena Strängberg
Naunynstrasse 38
10999 Berlin, Germany
T +49.30.62736104
M +39.3286080018 (Italian number during preview days)
cap2013@bureau-n.de
Press images:
www.cap2013.net/en/for-press
www.cap2013.net
For the fifth time, Central Asia will be represented
at the International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia by artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, commissioned by
HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation).
The curatorial concept WINTER by the young curatorial duo Ayatgali Tuleubek (Kazakhstan, 1985) and Tiago
Bom (Portugal, 1986) – Oslo based artists and maybe
among the youngest curators ever in the history of
Venice Biennale – was selected by an international
committee of experts following an open call for curators launched by HIVOS in 2012. The artist Susanne
M. Winterling joined as artistic advisor to develop
the curatorial project and The Academy of Fine Art/
Oslo National Academy of the Arts was invited as the
implementing institution, with Dean Vanessa Ohlraun
as Deputy Commissioner.
The title and underlying concept of WINTER comes
from a poem by 19th-century Kazakh poet and thinker
Abay Qunanbayuli, whose reflections on social justice endowed the region with a profound intellectual
legacy. In re-contextualizing his poem, the pavilion’s
curators invoke poetic interpretations of reality.
Through nuance and metaphor, Qunanbayuli’s poem
reveals potential concepts for broader debate, raising
questions rather than proposing firm statements. The
states of Central Asia are culturally similar, sharing a
common past in their Soviet history. Now, after two
decades of independence in the region, there have
been substantial changes in social, political and cultural life.
WINTER critiques the stagnation of these contexts,
characterised by the absence of local spaces for analysis
and artistic diversity. Yet, similar states of intellectual
inertia can be identified around the world, inviting the
universal question: “How can artists, cultural producers and activists react and respond?”
Selected through an open call directed at poets, writers, activists and other cultural practitioners, the six
artistic positions and discursive statements staged
in the Pavilion address questions relevant to Central
Asian realities and beyond.
The participating artists areVyacheslav Akhunov
(b. 1948) from Uzbekistan, Saodat Ismailova (b. 1981)
from Uzbekistan, Kamilla Kurmanbekova (b. 1986) &
Erlan Tuyakov (b. 1985) from Kazakhstan,Ikuru Kuwajima (b. 1984) from Kazakhstan,Anton Rodin (b. 1988)
& Sergey Chutkov (b. 1984) from Tajikistan, and Aza
Shade (b. 1988) from Kyrgyzstan.
Through a diverse schedule of discussions, seminars
and screenings, the peripatetic parallel programme of
WINTER launched in February and running throughout 2013 in collaboration with local institutions in
Almaty, Bishkek, Dushanbe and Oslo, set out to find
ways of establishing alternative models to foster the
development of critical thinking and self-reflection
within artistic contexts in Central Asia and across
Europe. With the active participation of Central Asian
and non-Central Asian contributors, these platforms
stress different aspects of the artistic production
characteristic to the region, relevant to local and
international audiences.
Winter
Broad-shouldered, white-coated, powdered with snow,
Blind and dumb, with a great big silvery beard,
Granddad Winter plods on with a frown on his brow,
By everything living hated and feared.
The grumpy old fellow does plenty of harm.
His breath stirs up blizzards, brings snow and cold.
With a cloud for a hat on his shaggy head,
He marches along, all the world in his hold.
His beetling eyebrows are knit in a frown.
When he tosses his head—dismal snow starts to fall.
Like a crazy old camel he acts in his rage,
Rocking and shaking our yurt’s thin wall.
If the children run out to play in the yard
He pinches their noses and checks with cruel hands.
No sheepskin can keep out the freezing cold;
With his back lo the wind, the shepherd stands.
The horses in vain try to shatter the ice—
The hungry herd scarcely shuffle their feet.
Greedy wolves—winter’s henchmen—bare their fangs;
Watch, or disaster your flocks may meet!
Drive them off to safe pastures—don’t wait until day.
You won’t die if you sleep less—come, quicken your step.
Kondibai and Kondai aren’t as wicked as wolves—
Don’t let old man Winter feast in our steppes.
Abay Qunanbayuli, 1888
Translated by Dorian Rottenberg
WINTER
Curatorial Statement
by Ayatgali Tuleubek and Tiago Bom
The title of the exhibition WINTER is inspired by a
poem by 19th century Kazakh poet and thinker Abay
Qunanbayuli, who left a great intellectual legacy to the
region of Central Asia and whose work was concerned
with questions of social justice in his time.
In our curatorial project for the 55th International Art
Exhibition, we re-contextualise this poem to present-day
Central Asia, employing the key of the metaphorical
to address the current socio-political context in the
region and the issue of artistic agency. We aim to
broaden the political debate in the region by raising
questions rather than proposing statements. One of
the questions we pose is: How can the specificity of
the local political and artistic context be approached
in a way that transgresses common assumptions about
authority and power?
The exhibition brings together visual reflections on
the current socio-political situation of the region
through the metaphor of winter. Winter represents
a cultural climate in which an analytical or critical
public discourse is frozen, or nearly absent. However,
it bears the potential to develop into spring – a more
vibrant public debate, based on openness and participation.
Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the
newly gained independence of the Central Asian
republics gave rise to hopes for free and fair societies.
However, the collapsed economy inherited from the
Soviet Union and the abrupt transition to a neo-liberal
market economy left these countries in an extreme
state of disarray. The authorities of the newly-founded
republics promoted the idea of economy first, democracy later which, under these circumstances, became
universally accepted. Evidently, later never arrived.
Today, it is not in the interest of the powers in charge
to allow for a vibrant public debate or a broad spectrum of voices to be heard in the decision-making
processes. Rather, their aim is to sustain a state of
general silence. This state of silence is usually covered
up by the ideological mantra of stability – a phenome-
non characteristic for most post-Soviet states. The
artistic and cultural sphere in the region of Central
Asia is characterised by a lack of exhibition spaces and
platforms for art education and promotion of critical
thinking. This creates a feeling of alienation amongst
the artists, who fail to engage in public discourse and
face social challenges in their respective countries.
WINTER seeks to engage a variety of practices through
the exhibition, the publication and a parallel programme of lectures, film screenings and conferences
in Central Asia, Venice and Oslo. Our aim is to serve as
a catalyst for a genuinely open public debate on issues
such as the relation between art and power structures,
art’s potential to have an impact on society and possible strategies that artists can follow under precarious
conditions and in oppressive times, as well as other
issues currently pertinent to the region. With the active
participation of Central Asian, as well as international
contributors, we hope to arrive at a deeper understanding of the current socio-political situation in the
region, raise new questions and discover alternative
ways to move beyond the current state of stagnation.
OPENING RECEPTION & BREAKFAST FORUM
“Perspectives beyond Stagnation”
30 May, 2013, 9 - 11 am
During the preview of the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Central Asian
Pavilion in Venice hosts an opening breakfast and
discussion entitled “Perspectives beyond Stagnation”
on Thursday 30 May between 9 and 11am, organised in
collaboration with the curators of LIAF 2013
(Lofoten International Art Festival); Anne Szefer
Karlsen, Bassam El Baroni and Eva González-Sancho.
Lofoten International Art Festival - LIAF 2013 contributes to the event by inviting Gopal Balakrishnan
(History of Consciousness Department, UCSC) to
expand on his 2009 essay “Speculations on the Stationary State”, one of the source readings for the 2013
LIAF-curators, with a talk on “Further Convolutions of
Capitalism”.
The curatorial team of the Central Asian Pavilion has
invited philosopher and writer Aaron Schuster, who
will address issues of transgression and constraint.
The collaboration is prompted by the kinship of
thinking between the LIAF 2013 and the Central Asian
Pavilion.
Since 1999 Lofoten International Art Festival is a biannual art exhibition with a diverse range of expressions
and artists. Lofoten is an archipelago in the north west
of Norway, situated within the Arctic Circle it experiences one of the world’s largest elevated temperature
anomalies relative to its high latitude.
The title of LIAF 2013 ‘Just what is it that makes today
so familiar, so uneasy?’ – inspired by the late British
artist Richard Hamilton’s collage from 1956: ‘Just what
is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ – suggests that what makes our present distinct
is both its familiarity and its uneasiness.
www.liaf2013.no
Publication “WINTER - Poetics and Politics”
Editors: Tiago Bom, Vanessa Ohlraun, Ayatgali Tuleubek, Marina Vishmidt,
Susanne M. Winterling
Publisher: Mousse Publishing, Milano
This publication picks up on several of the themes that
emerge conceptually and artistically in the
Central Asian Pavilion project, and elaborates them in
a philosophical, historical and poetic register within
the specific materiality and temporality of a book,
though the website as a repository and forum for these
kinds of explorations should be mentioned as well,
with its capacity to extend the time, space and context
of the ideas beyond the Venice Biennale and to a readership beyond the project’s immediate public. The Pavilion’s organizing metaphor of winter is appropriated from
the poem by 19th century Kazakh poet, intellectual and
activist Abay Qunanbayuli.
The metaphor of winter here evokes social stagnation,
cultural censorship and political unfreedom. It refers
to a context where the intensity of debate on social
goals lags and there seems to be little or no horizon
for change; a situation then, which varies more in
degree than in kind from the one we experience in the
relatively privileged environs of the North and West,
where economy not only comes first, but political
means are used to enforce economic goals, imposing
and deepening crises of reproduction for billions of
people. This is not to lose the specificity of the Central Asian situation, nor the differences between the
nation states, which fall into that rubric – Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Featuring essays on the geopolitics of energy, post-Soviet political narratives, art-historical analyses and
the political economy of contemporary art in a time of
social crisis, the book gives a snapshot of the aesthetic,
political and poetic dimensions of the situation in the
region.
Contributions include:
Zifa Auezova: “Abay Kunanbaev: Winter”
Topic: the influence of humanist ideas, the visions of
the social fairness of the eastern writers and poets of
the late 19th and early 20th century on the contemporaneity.
Ruslan Getmanchuk: “A Créolité Apologia: the Case
of Central Asia”
Topic: the case of the Central Asian countries following the ideas of créolité proposed by Edouard Glissant
as a concept for the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of the Antilles. He brings a historical analysis
of the region, its different cultural transformations
through the Russian colonization, USSR and the recent
globalization. He considers the necessity of adopting
this concept in order to struggle against the rising
nationalism and oppression of the cultural activity of
the ethnic minorities.
Adil Nurmakov: “Lost in Transition”
Topic: on historical development capitalism with
Asian values, the case of Kazakhstan and Central Asia,
and how it led to ‘winter’.
Gabriel Levy: “Workers’ Organization in the Oil Industry: a Local Analysis”
Topic: on geopolitics of energy and oilworkers’ struggles in Kazakhstan.
Maria Chehonadskih: “The State Without the State
and its People: Precarity and the Constitution of New Forms of Life”
Topic: precarity and post-soviet condition: ‘post-soviet
precarization in the context of cultural production and
general political, economical neoliberal context.’
Anton Vidokle script: “Energy of Kosmos is Indestructible!!!”
Viktor Misiano, Interview by Susanne M. Winterling:
“Is It Easy To Be Young?”
Abdumanap Sarimsakov, Pyotr Ivanov, Ravshan Mustaphin, Ekaterina Smirnova, survey:
“The Role of Contemporary Art in Uzbekistan: Survey of Young Artists”
Topic: The group will problematize and will bring an
insight on artistic and cultural production under
authoritarian regimes such as Uzbekistan.
Ekaterina Degot: “Winter Writing”
Topic: ‘some neoreactionary tendencies in russian art,
politics and society – a series of small essays in new
journalist writing, not theoretical, about Moscow art
and political context, all the episodes are taking place
in never ending winter.’
Elmira Nogoibaeva: “In Spite of Revolution: Kyrgyzstan 2005, 2010”
Topic: the revolutions of 2005 and 2010 in Kyrgyzstan
and whether these revolutions have brought any
change.
Kari Johanne Brandtzaeg: “The return of the political - inclusions and exclusions in the transnational history of art”
Topic: The connection between aesthetics and politics
in the interwar period and today with a special emphasis on the Russian-post Soviet and Norwegian context.
Slavs and Tatars: “Not Moscow Not Mecca “
Anna Basanova: “Checkmate or stalemate: Contemporary Art in Tadjikistan“
Topic: analysis of the underground and “unofficial”
arts of Tajikistan in opposition to the cultural policies
of the government.
Kerstin Stakemeier: “Traces of an epic element in the
midst of a catastrophe”
Topic: on crisis subjectivity, politics and aesthetics
Faruh Kuziev, artist project: Fictional state museum
catalogue: “Book Without Marina Abramovic”
Artists
Vyacheslav Akhunov (Uzbekistan)
Vyacheslav Akhunov (born in 1948) is one of the most distinguished artists in Central Asia today. His recent exhibitions include dOCUMENTA (13), the Beirut Art Center (2012), the New Museum - New York (2011), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2011), the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010–11), the Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2010), the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2008–09) and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008).
Saodat Ismailova (Uzbekistan)
Born in Uzbekistan, Saodat Ismailova (b. 1981) has studied filmmaking in Tahskent State Art Institute and has then joined the cinema department of Fabrica in Italy where she has directed several projects among which Aral: Fishing in an Invisible Sea. In her work, Saodat aims to capture the essence of contemporary Central Asia and to understand the state of its soul through all of its transitions, with a special interest on surviving pre-islamic beliefs and animism. She is interested in the collision of fiction and documentary observation with a special focus on sound research and cinematic experimentation.
Kamilla Kurmanbekova & Erlan Tuyakov (Kazakhstan)
Kamilla Kurmanbekova (b. 1986) and Erlan Tuyakov (b.1985), visual artists and scenographers, present a joint project for the Central Asian Pavilion. Kamilla and Yerlan have graduated from Kazakh National Academy of the Arts. Both artists work with different media with focus on large scale installations.
Ikuru Kuwajima (Kazakhstan)
After studying photojournalism in University of Missouri, Columbia for 4 years, Ikuru Kuwajima (b. 1984), originally from Japan, moved to Central Asia in 2010 and is now based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, working on photography projects and editorial work with focus on central Asia and the former Soviet Union. His work has been exhibited in various venues including Noorderlicht Photo Festival, the Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism (Hannover, Germany) and MIO Museum. He received a number of awards including Picture of the Year International in 2009 and 2010 and the first place at Fujifilm Distinction Awards in 2010.
Anton Rodin and Sergey Chutkov (Tajikistan)
Anton Rodin (b. 1988) and Sergey Chutkov (b. 1984) present a joint project for the Central Asian Pavilion. Anton Rodin has received his education in journalism from the Russian-Tajik (Slavonik) University. He has lately worked as a freelance reporter, corrector, narrator, etc. Sergey Chutkov holds a degree in linguistics and intercultural communication from the Russian-Tajik (Slavonic) University. Chutkov has also worked as a programme coordinator for the Bactria Cultural Centre in Tajikistan.
Aza Shade (Kyrgyzstan)
Aza Shade (b. 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She graduated in 2011 from Central Saint Martins with a BA in Graphics (Moving Image). Inspired by 60-80’s avant-garde, and the phenomenon called 'Theatre of the Absurd', the majority of her work is based around a dark humour and absurdism involved in dysfunctional childhoods, mental disorders and poverty.
