Text: Natalia Remmer DUBAI ART SEASON WILL START MARCH 14 AND WILL LAST UP TO APRIL 15. APOFEOSIS OF CULTURAL EVENTS - THE LARGEST IN THE REGION OF THE ART DUBAI FAIR. THIS YEAR, SHE WILL MEET VISITORS WITH ACHIEVEMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY ART OF THE FORMER COUNTRIES OF THE SOTSLAGER.
Back to USSR
The eighth edition of the Art Dubai Fair will bring together 87 galleries from 36 countries in one space. In total, more than 500 works from all over the world will be presented. In the halls of the Madinat Jumeirah complex, the exhibition will be divided into three main sections - Contemporary, Modern and Marker. Some projects include performances by Art Dubai Projects, an exhibition of The Abraaj Group Art Prize winners and the Global Art Forum.
Section Marker will be a teahouse, or Eurasian tea salon. She will be the first to focus on the art of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The curator is a group of artists Slavs and Tatars, exploring the polemics and relations of Eurasia. This group works with each site and its artists to present existing and new works that will be shown in the group exhibition using a unique "portrait mode", including faces, places and prints, from paintings of the middle of the 20th century to contemporary drawings and sculptures .
"Slavs and Tatars are Iranian Payam Sharifi, born in Texas, Polish Kasha Krzhak, American Victoria Kamblin and Belgian Boy Vereken. In their works, artists draw attention to the difference in perception of the contexts of East and West, while revealing the problems of historical relations between the countries of Eurasia. spends quite a lot of time in Moscow, speaks fluent Russian, and also has a special love for Stalin's skyscrapers, "said art expert Alexei Afanasyev.
At five stands you can hear detailed stories regarding the faith, language and landscapes of Central Asia and the Caucasus, and get answers to questions of interest. And also to understand how so different nations were able to maintain their original rites, to assimilate, but not lose national characteristics. “The importance of the Caucasus and Central Asia for the Middle East and the Islamic world as a whole, from the process of becoming nations to syncretic religious rituals, can’t be overestimated,” says Slavs and Tatars. “We are pleased to be able to tell a completely different story of these regions, the history of tolerance , through collaborative visual platforms. "
For the first time, the Marker section will include an expanded educational program in which there was a place for a research stand, daily discussions and sightseeing tours of the exhibition with curators and artists. The education partner of the Marker section is the Caspian Arts Foundation. "Today, in its fourth year of operation, Marker has evolved into an extraordinary and dynamic section within the framework of our art fair, which has its own characteristics and special purpose," says Antonia Kerver, director of the Art Dubai fair.
2014 will also mark the beginning of a collaboration between Marker and renowned Parisian publishing house Onestar Press, which publishes books on artists. This year, Onestar will publish a book about beginners and famous artists from Central Asia and the Caucasus, invited by Slavs and Tatars. Among them are Reza Khazar, Taus Makhacheva and Armen Eloyan.
Art Marker 2014
Section Marker 2014 includes five exhibition stands with expositions, where the following organizations will be represented.
ArtEast (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) is a non-governmental organization supporting the development of contemporary art and the creative community in Kyrgyzstan, founded in 2002 by artists Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Dzhumaliev. They also run the ArtEast School of Contemporary Art and curate the well-known international contemporary art exhibitions in Bishkek.
Asia Art + (Almaty, Kazakhstan) is a foundation founded in 1996 and leading projects in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The Asia Art + Public Foundation supports contemporary art in Kazakhstan and the countries of Central Asia, promoting it around the world. The Asia Art + Foundation took part in the Re-Orientation project in 2002 at the ACC Gallery, Weimar, Germany, and was part of the Central Asia Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and the Biennale in Istanbul in 2005, and also many other exhibitions.
The North Caucasian branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art (Vladikavkaz, Russia), opened in 2010 and is the only state institution in the North Caucasus region working in the space of modern culture. The North Caucasus Branch of the NCCA works with artists such as Khazar Gasiev, Yuri Abisalov, Ruslan Tsrimov, Stas Harin, Natalie Sokolova, Aslan Gaisumov, Taus Makhacheva and Galina Konopatskaya.
Popiashvili Gvaberidze Window Project (Tbilisi, Georgia) was created by Irena Popiashvili and Tamuna Gvaberidze. The gallery is an innovative art site in Georgia, showing the work of both Georgian and international artists whose work is not yet known to the general public. The Window Project was launched last summer and includes works by authors such as Andro Eradze, Georgy Khaniashvili, Alfred Epitashvili, Uta Bekai and Levan Chelidze.
YARAT Contemporary Art Space (Baku, Azerbaijan), founded in 2011 by Aida Makhmudova, is a non-profit art platform whose goal is to promote and support contemporary art in the country. YARAT is called to create a platform both in Azerbaijan and abroad for well-known and aspiring artists through the organization of exhibitions, cultural events and educational programs.
About lost time
This year, the Art Forum at the Art Dubai Fair will be dedicated to the turning points in history and the turns of fate that influenced its course. The theme of the forum is "Meanwhile ... History." During discussions and master classes, experts from the world of art, architecture, cinema, literature, theater and history will discuss the trends of Soviet orientalism, recall the myths of the Cold War, the pearl industry in the Persian Gulf region and the generation of the seventies.
Masha Kirasirova, assistant professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi, will remind participants of the forum about the undeservedly forgotten I Congress of Oriental Peoples, which was held in Baku from September 1 to 8, 1920. It can be used to judge the policies of the young Soviet state in the Islamic world. So, during this congress, the "Sharia Project" was prepared, which contained 15 explanations of the Sharia provisions that are consistent with the communist doctrine. Using traditional religion, the authors of the document tried to legitimize the new government. The “Soviet Shariahists,” who claimed that communism and Shariah did not contradict each other, were supported in 1921 by Joseph Stalin, who was then the People’s Commissar for Nationalities. By the way, in the USSR, despite the desire for atheization, the authorities helped to organize hajis and hold congresses of Muslims. About the Islamic factor in Soviet Russia, the system of checks and balances and assistance to the fraternal peoples can be found out or asked during the global art forum.
Language lessons
In parallel with the exposition at the Art Dubai fair, Slavs and Tatars will present a solo exhibition at The Third Line Gallery in the Al Quoz industrial area. From March 17 to April 17, artists within the framework of the “Literature” exhibition will consider language as a source of political, metaphysical and even sexual emancipation, whether it be the Latin in Ancient Rome, the Arabic script of the caliphate or the Cyrillic of Orthodox Russia. And behind each of them is politics, culture and ideology.
The exposition "Literature" sings a hymn to the language in a series of sculptures, installations and printed works. The works were performed in Russian, Turkish, Georgian, English and Farsi. "Love letters" will tell about the problem of language, as the "poet-worker" Vladimir Mayakovsky saw it. The artists of Slavs and Tatars are distinguished by the fact that they like to combine the incompatible: Islam and communism, metaphysics and humor, pop culture and geopolitics.
Extreme Odyssey Cartier
The high jewelry brand Cartier, a traditional partner of the Art Dubai fair, together with the contemporary art foundation of the same name, will present the creation of the African designer Bodis Isek Kingelez this year. Two imaginary cities in the contrast of beauty and global differences create a balance of opposites on the verge between sleep and reality. It was such imaginary spaces of scrap metal, cardboard and fragile materials that became the inspiration for the new Cartier odyssey with new geometry and symbolism of jewelry.
