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martedì 28 novembre 2017

TAJIK ARTISTS in Tajikistan

Dushanbe Dispatch: In Political Critique, Tajik Artists Work Around the System

by Olga Stefan
“People here need art to be fun, that’s the first step. Then maybe when they start understanding more, it can also be conceptual. But to attract them, it must be fun,” explains Murodjon Sharifov, one of a handful of contemporary artists working in Tajikistan, a post-Soviet Muslim country struggling with the aftermath of a devastating civil war, religious radicalization, and extreme poverty. The country’s dictatorship—President Emomali Rahmon has been in power over 20 years—is seen by many as a stabilizing force in what would otherwise be utter chaos or a Taliban-style takeover. 
Murodjon is referring to his work, Wish them luck!, an outdoor installation that took place within the frame of Spaces on the Run, a project that included workshops, a multi-site public art exhibition and events in various locations of the capital, as well as a tour of other Central Asian countries for the participating artists, themselves originating from these countries and Tajikistan. The project's aims are “to analyze the processes behind recent transformations of public spaces in the post-socialist context and to investigate the status of public spaces in Central Asia by challenging the hegemonic narratives, consumerist and private interests by re-appropriating/re-thinking and re-activating the public space trough contemporary art and social practices.”
Spaces on the Run was initiated in 2014 by Stefan Rusu, an expat curator from Moldova currently working at Dushanbe Art Ground, the only contemporary art space in Tajikistan, founded in 2012 by artist and curator Jamshed Kholikov. Jamshed is a pioneer of the small contemporary art scene in Tajikistan. He was initiator and participant in some of the first contemporary art projects that took place in the country starting in 2004, before co-founding the Dushanbe Art Ground with the support of the Swiss Cooperation Office that has funded contemporary art activities in Dushanbe for more than a decade.
Wish them luck! is composed of around two dozen watering cans arranged in lines radiating from a central point, placed near a water faucet on the grounds of a private amusement park. The visitor is intended to fill the cans with water but gets trapped by the rules of the game: only one unmarked can is empty, the rest are filled with sand. It is the artist’s comment on the profound systems of corruption eating away at his country, where nothing can be achieved without bribing some official or agent.  Bribery is the only way to create something, to act, while those who don’t are stuck with cans filled with sand, immobile and inactive. 
 
This more profound social criticism is lost on the audience, who prefer to play with water. And who can blame them? Tajikistan is also a country facing severe water shortages with its glaciers rapidly retreating, and more than 1.5 million of its 8 million people are food-insecure. Experts believe that this extreme climate change in Central Asia might result in regional warfare, and that it should be a top geo-political priority. But it is not, because here politicians are focused on enriching themselves and their families.
While “contemporary art,” a term that in any case needs some analysis, is considered by many in the west as a dominant cultural form, and believed accurately or not to have transformative powers, its role in Tajik society is almost entirely inexistent. It is something practiced by about ten artists within a closed circle. When asked what contemporary art means to them, many artists with whom I spoke told me that for them it is video art. Not installation, painting, or even performance. Not a specific language or a critical approach. Rather it is something medium specific: namely, video. This might be due to the complex socio-cultural situation in Tajikistan, torn between the present resurgence of Islam, a religion that for fear of idolatry forbids human representation in art, and a Soviet past that encouraged the idolatry of sanctioned people and images. Or it is due to the lack of funding for production. With only two local funders, the Open Society Institute, a Soros Initiative, and the Swiss Cooperation Office, the former of which is under threat of expulsion, the small budgets that do exist are for implementation exclusively.
But video might also be to some the culmination of contemporaneity, with its ability to record, document, and reflect reality, and also deconstruct it. Video seems to have been the medium of choice also because of its non-materiality; this, in a dictatorship that cracks down violently on any public dissent and criticism, is an asset. It can be easily distributed anonymously on the internet, it leaves almost no traces, and yet can reach people all over the world instantaneously. It can be screened surreptitiously and due to its temporality, has a much higher chance of not attracting the attention of the censors, while an object-based exhibition with critical material would much more likely be shut down. 
Spaces on the Run, for example, was carried out both officially, with due permits, and unofficially, assuming the risks. The project is critical of current urbanization policies that favor the demolition of soviet era buildings, while supporting the construction of new, stylistically hybrid structures that may aspire to reflect a modern autochthonic architectural identity but are embroiled in corruption and money-laundering. The governmental policies of eliminating the past while privatizing and commercializing all public space echoes the trend in many post-socialist countries, where a violent form of capitalism has usurped most social preoccupations.
But here, in Dushanbe, it’s not a question only of eradicating the past by razing entire neighborhoods and important architecture from before 1989, an issue that historian and journalist Gafur Shermatov addresses in his writings. The more egregious problems are the absolute opacity in awarding building contracts, the totalitarian decision-making in city development lacking any civic input, the corrupt spending of European funds on megalomaniacal construction projects, and the absurd amount of money-laundering that occurs in the construction industry, the most profitable in the country. These issues, however, are less likely to be addressed openly and directly because while general social problems, like gender inequality, the environment, the changing urban landscape, the dependence of Tajikistan’s economy on remittances from Russia, are vaguely touched upon in the public sphere, once specific individuals are named culpable or some civic action taken, there is immediate censorship and retaliation. 

The grey zone in which Spaces on the Run managed to function is characteristic of how any critical public discourse can exist in this country. There are protected spaces, few, where a certain indirect critique is allowed, and where to garner permission to act, one must hide the true nature of the activity or engage in bribery. So it was with a series of presentations on transformations in public space in post-socialist countries that took place in the Children’s Park of Dushanbe. The park is managed by an office associated with the municipality that focuses on children and youth with disabilities. To get the necessary permits for these events, Dushanbe Art Ground co-opted the office by inviting it to present its civic activities, all the while obfuscating the criticisms expressed by Gafur Shermatov in his lecture about the destroyed parks of Dushanbe. However, other projects within Spaces on the Run needed to take place in private spheres: Murodjon’s Wish them luck! and Kazakh artist Bakytzhan Salikhov’s The Best Citizens, a work composed of mirrors reflecting onlookers’ countenance, thus reminding them of their civic responsibilities, were installed on the private land of an amusement park where Murodjon’s mother works. Other lectures about this transformation were scheduled in a former state cinema turned private restaurant, where the group was allowed to gather semi-privately in exchange for food and drink purchases, thus highlighting the very phenomenon addressed by the speakers.
Many in Dushanbe who lived under the Soviet regime are nostalgic for that past: it was a time when roads and cities were built (it was then that Dushanbe was developed from a small village into the country’s capital, with unique architecture and excellent infrastructure); education and health care was universal and free; cultural institutions like opera, museums and theater were funded; and people had jobs. Russian is still the language of culture, business, and interethnic communication, but the young generation brought up in a post-civil war reality, when nationalistic tendencies also manifest themselves in the battle for the Tajik alphabet, a Persian language, is losing its literacy in Russian and is not yet gaining it in Tajik either.
“Some of my students don’t know how to write their own names neither in Tajik nor in Russian, and we expect them to understand and take an interest in contemporary art,” says Murodjon, who also teaches painting and drawing at the Institute of Art. The conflict over the script of Tajik, which is now the official language, embodies the political conflict within the Tajik people themselves: some want to Latinize it and thus get closer to Uzbekistan who also adopted this alphabet. Others, the devoutly religious, prefer the Persian alphabet to align themselves to Iran and their Persian heritage, while a final group prefers to leave it in Cyrillic and not distance themselves from Russia on which Tajikistan heavily depends economically and militarily.
Women's rights and gender inequality are also serious issues here. Larisa Dodkhudoeva, the only art history professor at the University in Dushanbe, explains: 
In the Soviet times, the gender gap was not nearly as wide. Women were educated, had good jobs and social standing in society. Now it seems we have regressed with this resurgence of religion and traditionalism. Women are now pushed back into the home and their presence in public is diminishing more and more. They are becoming invisible.
These subjects are taken up by two female artists in Reimagining the New Man, another project initiated by the Dushanbe Art Ground in 2014 and curated by Stefan Rusu. In one part of the project participants were involved in a video production workshop taught by two American filmmakers and were given access to film archives from the Soviet period from which to work.  This event was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in collaboration with the local funders previously mentioned and was an extension of an initiative on civic engagement proposed by the U.S. Embassy. 

Alla Rumyantseva’s I Met a Girl is based on a famous Tajik film from 1957 in which the patriarchal structure of society is criticized and questioned in favor of women’s emancipation. After a long period during the Soviet era when women could, within a limited frame, “follow their dreams,” a return to the patriarchy of old is taking root in modern Tajikistan. Using fragments of the 1957 film juxtaposed with new interviews with women, this video criticizes the religious values that are taking over society and making it nearly impossible for women to self-actualize.
Generation Next, the work of Surayo Tuychieva who is the only professor of art theory in Tajikistan and Larisa Dodkhudoeva’s daughter, reveals the transformation of political ideology in Tajikistan through the prism of changing accessories worn by women. During the Soviet era schoolgirls, like boys, wore red kerchiefs around their necks. They were all Pioneers, members of the Soviet youth. A new religious ideology has replaced the former atheist one, and has instead relegated women to an inferior position, hiding them behind hijabs. The red scarf has morphed along with the ideology, from a sign of atheism and equality between the sexes to a sign of religiosity and oppression. 
In today’s Tajikistan there are only few who criticize publicly, and those that do tend to do it in general terms, using a masked language of metaphor, or without pointing the finger to individual culprits. In this oppressive and potentially explosive context, where the people are forced to choose between a secular corrupt dictatorship that keeps the country semi-stable or a collapse into yet another civil war, only small, primarily private events that try to bring awareness to various social problems can take place. But with no public debate and only a few who take an interest in these issues, transformation will be very slow. For the most part people want to be businessmen, artists included. The struggle to make a living in Central Asia’s poorest country supplants all other preoccupations.
Sabzali Sharipov, Murodjon’s father, and one of the most famous artists from the Soviet era, sums up the perspective of some in this way:
What our president did for our country after five years of bloody civil war is very good—he united us, he made us a nation. We fear Islamization, religious fanaticism—it happens very fast regardless of the education at home. Art and science are our only hopes.
But how can art offer hope when it exists for so few and is constantly at risk of being silenced by this same president’s government? Stefan Rusu looks ahead:
I hope and want to believe that Dushanbe Art Ground and its team will survive the increased restrictions which will continue to impose themselves following the examples in Russia and Uzbekistan, where the independent sector was stifled on all levels.
Tajikistan sits at the crossroads of ideologies—it is here that the battle between east and west, modern and traditional, past and future, secularism and religion is taking place. And if art will have any role in the country’s future, it must be brought out from the private realm into the public.

—Olga Stefan
009, based in Zurich. She contributes regularly to ArtReviewFrieze Magazine, Art in America,Flash ArtSculpture Magazine, ArtSlant, and Artmargins. Her upcoming exhibition, Laughter and Forgetting, takes place October 9-16, 2015 in the frame of Bucharest Art Week.

Murodjon Sharifov, Wish them luck!, 2015, Public performance at Pаrk Poytaht. Courtesy of the artist and Dushanbe Art Ground



 Bakytzhan Salikhov, The Best Citizens, Installation view at Pаrk Poytaht. Courtesy of the artist and Dushanbe Art Ground


Alla Rumyantseva, I Met a Girl, 2014, Video still. Photo: Stefan Rusu


Surayo Tuychieva, Generation Next, 2014, Video stills. Photos: Stefan Rusu
Zuhur Habibullaev

He was able to change the style of  Tajik art in the sixties of the 20th c. So he has been in the center of the Tajik artistic life for many years.
Habibulloev  is People`s  Artist of the Republic of Tajikistan and Member of the Union of artists of Tajikistan.
He was born in 1932 in Dushanbe. He has had good professional education: graduated from Olimov State art College in Dushanbe in 1953 and Mukhin High industrial-art school in St. Petersburg in 1959.
Habibulloev has been participant of the all USSR, republican and international exhibitions from 1960. His works are held in museums and private collections of Tajikistan, Russia,Europe and Asia.

Work of Nurjon (Lemon Seller)
Zuhur Habibullaev
size:110x70 year:1985 material:oil and canvas


Master (Usto)
Zuhur Habibullaev
size:120x80 year:1986 material:oil and canvas



Morning of the Shepherd
Zuhur Habibullaev
size:120x80 year:2003 material:oil and canvas


Bazar (Grape Seller)
Zuhur Habibullaev
size:90x120 year:2004 material:oil and canvas

 Refugees
Zuhur Habibullaev
size:100x100 year:2004 material:oil and canvas

Dilorom Shermatova


Dilorom Shermatova was born in Tajikistan. Now   living and working in Dushanbe she is one of Tajik most distinguished artists who has exhibited her works in a number of art centers .She graduated from Olimov State Art College in Dushanbe. She is a member of the Artists Union of Tajikistan.
The uniqueness of her art works is in the fact that all her pictures are made of dried pressed rose petals. Each detail of the picture, even (eyes, eyelashes, hair) – are made of dried pressed roses.
Instead of oil she uses natural gamut of colors of these beautiful flowers. And also she makes her artworks with semiprecious stone (frorentine mosaics).
Dilorom’s works represent a new trend in the modern art of Tajikistan. She invites the viewer to go beyond stereotypes, to convey the significance of people’s daily lives and aspirations.
Her works are in private collections in Europe and USA. 
The Morning
Dilorom Shermatova
size:19x25 year:Unknown material:dried rose petals, cardboard

Motherhood
Dilorom Shermatova
size:21x43 year:Unknown material:dried rose petals, cardboard

Girl with flute
Dilorom Shermatova
size:19x25 year:Unknown material:dried rose petals, cardboard

Girl with flute
Dilorom Shermatova
size:19x25 year:Unknown material:dried rose petals, cardboard

Mountain girl
Dilorom Shermatova
size:25x40 year:Unknown material:dried rose petals, cardboard

Manzura Uldjabaeva

Born in Leninabad (Tajikistan Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1952.
She graduated from the Republic Art College of Dushanbe in 1974.
From 1974 to 1976- Art Director of the Publishing House “IRFON”
From 1976 to 1993, she worked as Costume Designer of the “Tajikfilm” studio.
Since 1987, she is member of the Cinematographer and Artists’ Union of the USSR.
Since 2004, she is member of the Designers’ Union of the Republic of Tajikistan.
Since 1993 until present, she is professor at Olimov State Art College.
Being a costume designer, Ms. Uldjabaeva created draft costumes for more than 25 movies.
Some of them like “Mysteries of the family”, directed by V.Akhadov, was rewarded during the International Film Festival in Germany in 1984.
“The Stars are shining above tanoor”, a film of S.Rakhimov, was presented during the Film Festival in Cannes.
In 1996, she participated in the design of the uniforms for the Honor Guards under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan (authors’ group).
Portrait
Manzura Uldjabaeva
size:40x25 year:Unknown material:plasticine, cardboard

Dervish
Manzura Uldjabaeva
size:50x40 year:Unknown material:mixed techniques

Fantasy
Manzura Uldjabaeva
size:60x40 year:Unknown material:hot batik

 Nostalgia
Manzura Uldjabaeva
size:60x40 year:Unknown material:hot batik

Caspian Melody
Manzura Uldjabaeva
size:50x40 year:Unknown material:mixed techniques

Farruh Negmat-Zadeh

Born in 1959 in Dushanbe, and graduated from Moscow Art School and from Surikov State Art Institute of Moscow (1983).
He is member of the Union of Artists of Tajikistan and has participated in USSR and international exhibitions.
His works are in museums and private collections in The Netherlands, the USA, Syria and North Korea.  

Scene of Life
Farruh Negmat-Zadeh
size:58x88 year:1978 material:Oil Canvas

Flight
Farruh Negmat-Zadeh
size:76x120 year:2004 material:oil and canvas


 To Guests
Farruh Negmat-Zadeh
size:120x70 year:2005 material:oil and canvas

Portrait of Tahmina
Farruh Negmat-Zadeh
size:120x80 year:2005 material:oil and canvas

Portrait of Sabzina
Farruh Negmat-Zadeh
size:60x50 year:2005 material:oil and canvas

Bakhtiyor Odinaev

Artist Stage Manager. Born in Khujand and graduated from Olimov State Art College of Dushanbe in 1974. Since 1976, he is the – costumes designer for “Tajikfilm”, “Belarusfilm” and “Mosfilm” studios. Since 1992, he has been a Lecturer of Olimov State Art College. Since 1987, he is member of the confederation of the USSR cinematography Union and of the USSR Union of Artists.
He has participated in national and international exhibitions. His works are in private collections in Europe and CIS countries.  

Talk
Bakhtiyor Odinaev
size:40x30 year:2000 material:Unknown

Beauty
Bakhtiyor Odinaev
size:84x62 year:2000 material:Unknown

To go on a visit
Bakhtiyor Odinaev
size:72x60 year:2000 material:Unknown


Navrooz
Bakhtiyor Odinaev
size:90x66 year:2003 material:Unknown


December Morning
Bakhtiyor Odinaev
size:80x60 year:2005 material:oil and canvas


Azim Mukhamadiev

Born in Tashkent in 1943 and graduated from the Art College in Dushanbe in 1963. At present, he is working at the Publishing House in Dushanbe.
He has participated in many artists' exhibitions in the Tajik Republic.
He also designs books of different authors and the textbooks of general education schools.
In 1986, he participated in “The International Fair of books” in Moscow.

USSR
Azim Mukhamadiev
size:65x50 year:1994 material:oil and canvas

Composition
Azim Mukhamadiev
size:40x30 year:1988 material:paper and Indian ink

Composition
Azim Mukhamadiev
size:29x20 year:1988 material:paper and Indian ink

Composition
Azim Mukhamadiev
size:40x35 year:1997 material:oil and canvas

 Composition
Azim Mukhamadiev
size:70x70 year:2004 material:oil and canvas
 Azim Mukhamadiev
Murivat Bekhnazarov

Muruvat Beknazarov is a painter who transforms the reality into fantastic and exotic world. Picture for him is a plane which he must decorate by expressive and sensuous color.
Beknazarov is Honoured Artist of the Republic of Tajikistan and  Member of the Union of artists of Tajikistan.
He was born  in 1943 in the Vanj region of  Gorno-Badakhshon  province. At first he graduated from Olimov State art College in Dushanbe (1965) then he decided to continue education in Estonia and graduated from Estonian Academy of arts in Tallinn (1970). Since that time he has participated in USSR, republican and international exhibitions. His works are held in museums and private collections of Tajikistan, Europe, Asia and USA.

Merging
Murivat Bekhnazarov
size:150x180 year:1985 material:Unknown

Naked Woman
Murivat Bekhnazarov
size:100x80 year:1987 material:Unknown

Portrait of Lola
Murivat Bekhnazarov
size:75x65 year:1995 material:Unknown


Charity
Murivat Bekhnazarov
size:120x100 year:1998 material:Unknown

Harvest
Murivat Bekhnazarov
size:90x70 year:2005 material:Unknown

Zakir Sabirov

Сабиров Закир Джабирович 16 июня 1951г.р.,образование высшее. Окончил Ленинградский институт театра, музыки и кинематографии (1971-1976)г.г. класс профессора Афанасьева Д.В.
Работал в Государственном Академическом Театре Оперы и Балета им. С. Айни г. Душанбе с (1976-1992)г.г. в качестве художника постановщика и технолога.
Являлся членом Союза Художников СССР.
1981-1983г.г. Творческая командировка в Алжир
1983-1992г.г. Работа в театре оперы и балета им. С. Айни г. Душанбе
1991-1992 г.г. Художественный фонд г. Душанбе.
1992-1997 г.г. (ТПФК) «СОЗ», Директор.
1997-2006 г.г. Свободный художник, изобретатель.
Работает в жанре театральной, станковой и монументальной живописи, прикладного искусства, графика, костюм и .т.д.
Станковые работы и эскизы спектаклей, экспонировались на всесоюзных, республиканских и международных выставках. В том числе в г.Москве в выставочном «Манеж», Театральный Музей им. Бахрушина. В г. Душанбе в выставочном зале Союза Художников и Государственный Музей им. Бехзода. В г. Минске, Алжире, Испании, Италии, Индии и т.д.
1997-2006 г.г. Создан новый стиль «ПАРАЛЕЛИЗМ» и «МАТЕРИАЛИЗМ» в области искусства.
Новый стиль, «ПАРАЛЛЕЛИЗМ» и « МАТЕРИАЛИЗМ», является инновационным проектом в области искусства, материальном культуре и теории искусства.

Создатели радуги
Zakir Sabirov
size:110x89.5 year:1997 material:холст, масло

Крик- 90 годы
Zakir Sabirov
size:130x100 year:2000 material:холст, масло

Призрачная свалка
Zakir Sabirov
size:100x85.5 year:2001 material:холст, масло

Город в Сахаре
Zakir Sabirov
size:60.5x80.5 year:2004 material:холст, масло

Весна
Zakir Sabirov
size:100x70.5 year:2006 material:холст, масло


Suleiman Sharifi
 
Born in 1958 in Dushanbe. Member of the Union of Artists of Tajikistan. Participated in republican and international exhibitions. Works are held in museums and private collections of Tajikistan, Europe,Russian and USA.
E-mail: ssharifi@yandex.ru

Healer
Suleiman Sharifi
size:85x70 year:2004 material:oil on canvas

Night
Suleiman Sharifi
size:100x80 year:2005 material:oil on canvas

 Love
size:95x75 year:2006 material:oil on canvas

 Ih und libido
Suleiman Sharifi
size:50x60 year:2008 material:oil on canvas

 The heart of melon
Suleiman Sharifi
size:75x95 year:2009 material:oil on canvas

Sabzali Sharif
 Sabzali Sharipov (1946). Painter-monumentalist. Mr. Sharipov graduated from the Drama-arts Institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1972. He paints thematic paintings, landscape painting, portraits. He also works in the field of monumental arts and graphic arts; lives in Dushanbe 

 Struggle
Sabzali Sharif
size:97x97 year:1992 material:oil and canvas


Blind Man
Sabzali Sharif
size:115x57 year:1992 material:oil and canvas

 Prayer
Sabzali Sharif
size:115x115 year:1993 material:oil and canvas

Anxiety
Sabzali Sharif
size:97x100 year:1993 material:oil and canvas

Damned
Sabzali Sharif
size:115x57 year:1994 material:oil and canvas

Farrukh Khojaev

Farrukh Khojaev (1960) graduated from Polygraphic Institute in Lvov, Ukraine. Works in the field of graphic arts and painting.  

Navruz
Farrukh Khojaev
size:80x90 year:2000 material:oil and canvas

Corrida
Farrukh Khojaev
size:70x90 year:2000 material:oil and canvas

Sherdor
Farrukh Khojaev
size:80x90 year:2001 material:oil and canvas

Ozar Sharifi

Ozar Sharifi was born in Dushanbe on 1986. He graduated from Tajik Art College. Ozar participated in the exhibition of art works of young Tajik painters in Bactria Culture Center. He illustrated the second edition of “Melody of Mountains” by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Personal exhibition in Bactria Culture Center on 2005. Personal exhibition in Kulyab on 2007.  

Old man and the bird
Ozar Sharifi
size:50x35 year:2005 material:water-colour

 Friends
Ozar Sharifi
size:35x50 year:2005 material:water-colour

Talk
Ozar Sharifi
size:50x35 year:2006 material:water-colour


illustration
Ozar Sharifi
size:20x30 year:2007 material:mix


...a suivre...

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