Kazakhstan’s New Almaty Museum of Arts Focuses on Artwork of Central Asia

In a extremely anticipated second for the Kazakhstan cultural scene, the Almaty Museum of Arts (ALMA) opened its doorways to the general public on September 12 anchoring the nation’s vibrant creative legacy.

Because the nation’s first non-public museum devoted to trendy and modern artwork, the smooth new museum will showcase the gathering of its founder, the auto and actual property tycoon Nurlan Smagulov, whose holdings quantity over 700 artworks by Kazakh and Central Asian artists, in addition to worldwide artists.

Situated within the nation’s largest metropolis and former capital, ALMA is a minimalist monument that blends trendy urbanism with pure magnificence. Constructed from two interlocking L-shaped constructions, one clad in warm-toned limestone, the opposite in aluminum, the constructing is light-filled and stuffed with sharp angles and loft ceilings, echoing the Tian Shan Mountains simply behind the museum.  

Led by creative director Meruyert Kaliyeva and chief curator Inga Lāce, the museum’s everlasting assortment can be displayed through group exhibitions, solo reveals, collaborations, and analysis initiatives. The museum’s major aim is to offer a platform to the area’s underrepresented creative creators, each previous and current, whereas exploring cultural alternate with international audiences and establishments.

“We intention to foster curiosity, dialogue, and international engagement with the cultural wealth of Central Asia,” Kaliyeva advised ARTnews. “The opening program of exhibitions and performances brings collectively artists throughout generations: those that laid the foundations of contemporary artwork within the area and courageously started asking questions on nationwide id, at a time when such inquiries may result in persecution underneath the Soviet regime, and people who are redefining its future right now.”

The museum, she mentioned, is rooted “in native histories whereas reaching out to international views” as a method “to construct an area the place artwork could be each a mirrored image and a catalyst for change.”

The opening roster of exhibitions and activations supply a deep dive into the native artwork scene, whereas nonetheless providing context for these encountering Kazakh artwork for the primary time. Amongst these is the first-ever retrospective of Almaty-born artist Almagul Menlibayeva, whose work Smagulov first acquired 30 years in the past. The survey, titled “I Perceive Every part,” appears to be like at her four-decade profession, starting in Eighties.

Her images, which she took up as her medium in 2010 after beginning as a painter, discover girls, ecology, id politics, and Central Asian mythology in a post-Soviet, neo-colonial context. Drawing on shamanic symbols, Tegrismic cosmology, and imagery of the Steppe, Menlibayeva’s work makes an attempt to reclaim native tradition and discover a place for Kazakh traditions and mythology of their trendy actuality. Her most up-to-date collection, on view within the exhibition, combines regional historic websites with girls posing as mythological guardians of safety over the websites, wearing conventional garb, resembling in Bodyguards of Yassawi I and II (2025). The scenes are virtually futuristic, the ladies exuding a robotic stillness that transmutes custom into one thing uncanny.

ALMA’s inaugural group present, “Qonaqtar,” affords a take a look at the childhood and main actions of the Kazakh artwork scene. Qonaqtar means “company” in Kazakh, and Lāce, who curated the exhibition from the museum’s assortment, mentioned that phrase guided her curatorial pondering.

“It began with me pondering, sure I’m a curator, however I’m additionally a visitor taking a look at this assortment for the primary time, and one factor that leapt out at me as recurring was these scenes of celebration, of coming collectively, of meals, and this concept of hospitality,” Lāce advised ARTnews. “As a brand new museum with so many company visiting not simply this establishment but additionally this nation for the primary time, I assumed we too ought to begin with a festive observe.”

“Qonaqtar” delves into themes of hospitality, migration, and political tensions in Central Asia over the previous century, spanning the Soviet-era, by the Golden Period of Kazakh artwork between the Sixties-70s, to the current post-colonial growth. It additionally touches on the nuances of an artwork scene discovering its footing, responding to a number of social and political stimuli that reshaped the nation.

However Lāce mentioned the exhibition’s intention isn’t simply “about hospitality within the nomadic custom, the place individuals journey distant and strangers provide you with meals or shelter as a method for survival, or how these days Kazakh households like a giant feast. When you look deeper, this nation has had a historical past of ‘company,’ of individuals crossing voluntarily and involuntarily, intently tied to political issues occurring within the area.”

What was as soon as a largely nomadic lifestyle quickly modified when the Soviets settled in Kazakhstan within the nineteenth century, looking for to eradicate such traditions, in favor of managed facilities of financial and social manufacturing.

Throughout the Nineteen Thirties, the Kazakh individuals endured an artificially induced famine brought on by the Soviet Union, who took away cattle and grain in an try to drive locals away from nomadism, ensuing within the demise of greater than a 3rd of the Kazakh inhabitants. This drastically modified concepts of hospitality, which is mirrored within the artwork of the time. Toqbolat Togyzbayev’s Nonetheless Life with Flatbread (1989), for instance, reveals a desk set for internet hosting a visitor, however only some rounds of bread and cucumbers can be found to be shared.

Within the aftermath, the Soviets started displacing different teams, together with Koreans and Uyghurs, to Central Asia, Lāce defined, including “it was a giant social engineering undertaking of attempting to ‘remodel’ societies. All these individuals come collectively, although it’s by terrible circumstances, however in a method they’re all what make Kazakhstan right now as a result of they got here with their very own transportable landscapes, their traditions, and even their fashion of portray. You need to begin to query what Kazakh is after just a few generations.”

One of many first work seen within the exhibition is Shepherd’s Feast (1965) by Aisha Galymbayeva, the primary professionally skilled feminine artist in Kazakhstan. Rendered in shiny, expressive colours and unfastened brushworks, Galymbayeva’s pastoral scene is a commentary on how the Soviets would arrange festivals associated to native tradition, like these depicted, providing prizes to shepherds, regardless of actively working to eradicate nomadism. She created many work on this vein, resembling Bride (1957) and White Teapot (1990), which present moments of conventional, rural celebrations allowed to be practiced.  

“The Soviet Union was difficult at the moment, they didn’t need any type of political nationalism, however have been pleased for everybody to have their very own nationwide tradition on the similar time. So some traditions obtained reinvented and you might be allowed to have slightly little bit of your folklore, however solely in a non-political method,” Lāce mentioned.

Salikhitdin Aitbayev’s On the Virgin Lands. Lunchtime (Sixties) strikes an identical chord, depicting an occasion wherein the Soviets displaced hundreds to make the Kazakh Steppe arable however ended up being futile. “It’s a extremely a window into this historical past of this pressured migration,” Lāce mentioned.

To enrich the paintings on view, Lāce has additionally tried so as to add historic context through archival movies, like putting Galymbayeva’s utopic Friendship (1978) in juxtaposition with a movie documenting the 1973 Afro-Asian Writers Convention in Almaty. “Writers from each continents have been right here and on this second there was a sure type of decolonial pondering that arose,” she mentioned. Taken collectively, the artworks and the context is which they have been made is what makes the exhibition so worthwhile.

The brand new museum additionally holds a number of specifically commissioned outside sculptural works by Yinka Shonibare, Alicja Kwade, and Jaume Plensa, positioned on the general public plazas, inviting individuals to return to the museum. The second ground incorporates a collection of Artist Rooms, at present displaying large-scale works by Anselm Kiefer, an immersive room by Yayoi Kusama, a multi-channel audiovisual set up by Invoice Viola, and a maze-like Cor-Ten metal sculpture by Richard Serra.

Past what’s on view within the galleries, ALMA will quickly start its strong suite of worldwide programming. Subsequent month, it’s going to host a two-day program of efficiency and talks, organized with the Hyundai Tate Analysis Centre. Equally, ALMA will function a web site for additional analysis on Kazakh artists. The Getty Basis and New York College will supply grants to students from Central Asia researching artwork histories, whereas Paris-based nonprofit AWARE will accomplice with ALMA to analysis Kazakh girls artists.

“We began with this concept that even when individuals are not artwork connoisseurs or not acquainted with modern artwork, there would nonetheless be one thing that basically speaks to them instantly,” Lāce mentioned. “For Central Asia, it’s an exquisite second to carry this house to the artwork scene, as a result of it’s all growing so quick, and we hope that ALMA additionally affords one thing new, provides some focus and higher the artistic economic system.”