10 Jun - 09 Oct 16
YARAT Contemporary Art Space presents 300 Words on Resistance – a group exhibition including 7 emerging Azerbaijani artists: Farhad Farzaliyev, Ilkin Huseynov, Sitara Ibrahimova, Aida Mahmudova, Elturan Mammadov, Habib Saher, Zamir Suleymanov and 7 modern masters: Eldar Aghamalov, Anvar Asgarov, Rasim Babayev, Boyukagha Mirzazade, Tahir Salahov, Togrul Narimanbekov and Talat Shikhaliyev.
300 Words on Resistance draws from the belief that resistance is both personal and political. It is an essential social attitude in building civil society. Seven emerging Azerbaijani artists explore their perspective on resistance, introducing themes pre-occupying the youth of the country, such as gender relations, cultural stereotypes and socio-political uncertainty. The newly commissioned works explore both general and individual struggles facing the Azeri society today. These artists carry the voices of their generation, through times of economic turbulence and geo-political unrest, into the new century of capitalism and social awareness.
Throughout the exhibition, the new works are marked by and put into conversation with older works of the generation of artists from the 60s. The modern works, many of which have never been exhibited before, defined resistance during the Soviet era by going against the mainstream of Socialist-Realism and subverting propaganda art. These modern masters continue to act as a solid foundation and a source of inspiration for the younger generation of artists throughout the country.
AIDA MAHMUDOVA
Untitled, 2016
Installation
This immersive installation imposes a bodily challenge on the viewer by depicting the artist's introspective processes in space. Symbolizing internal resistance, the sculptures made in mixed media are ripped open to expose the personal struggles and act as physical manifestation of emotions associated with it. Executed in monumental scale and defying boundaries this work becomes an abstract embodiment of mental impulses of resistance. The use of gauze fabric in Mahmudova's recent works further accentuates the ideas of healing and decay.
BOYUKAGHA MIRZAZADE
1945, 1975
Oil on canvas, 197 x 178 cm
Boyukagha Mirzazade's mastery of composition is attributable to his fruitful career as a set designer and his colour palette to his affinity with French Impressionism. Mirzazade was devoted to the present-day ideology; painting posters during the Great Patriotic War and regularly idealizing the heroism of labourers.
Nevertheless, painted 30 years after the Great Patriotic War, 1945, defies patriotism by proposing a retrospective call to peace - “HET!” (“NO!”), questioning the worth of individual sacrifice in the name of ideology.
ELDAR AGHAMALOV
Baku 20s, 1978
Tempera on MDF, 50 x 50 cm
April 28, 1920, marks the date when Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed on the territory of fallen Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Establishment of the new regime resulted in atrocious bloodshed that was most felt in Baku, where the whole upper class of oil industrialists was wiped out. The painting Baku 20s pays homage to the tragic events from 1920 and going against the spirit of communism, paints the horror of people victimized and killed by the totalitarian regime.
ELTURAN MAMMADOV
Conflict Zone. Top 20, 2016
Sound installation with 20 earphones
Unidentified Heights, 2016
Digital print on cotton blanket, 500 x 500 cm
For the Conflict Zone. Top 20 Mammadov used Shazam to compile a list of most popular songs currently listened to around the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The occupied territories of Azerbaijan play a significant role in the self-identification of the country, which 24 years after the break-out of the conflict is still under the daily influence of the violent events of the war with Armenia. The work acts as a strong reminder of a persistent human desire to escape violence through enjoyment of life, despite the harsh geo-political reality. The sound installation is accompanied by Unidentified Heights, a blanket printed with geographical coordinates of the mountains of Karabakh. The work acts as a visualization of a verse from a folk children's poem Shepherd's Dream and further intensifies the artist's attempt to humanize the conflict.
ANVAR ASGAROV
To Those Disappearing on the Horizon, 1985
Oil on canvas
Tryptich, each 100 x 100 cm
Asgarov, successor of the Absheron School of painting, found his visual language in geometric and cubist influences. The triptych marks the turning point from industrial landscapes into geometric compositions. This narrative artwork expands the theme of resistance through voicing for freedom. The right and left sideboards are in heraldic style, and the symbolic centered sideboard covers the resistance of the wishes. The complex context laconically and conventionally describes the fortunes of the victims of political games, the endless power of wishes and the disappearance of everything at the end.
FARHAD FARZALIYEV
What a Gorgeous Place for Revelry! 2016
Video projection, sound, 60 min.
Farhad Farzaliyev's video documentation of a performance is conceived as a critique of overconsumption and greed. The work also highlights the act of eating as the focal ritual in the social life of the country. The artist staged a pseudo-sociological experiment where he invited strangers to partake in an opulent feast of traditional foods. The group of 12 men sat down, drank and threw a typical, all-male, Caucasian dinner party with toasting, poems and discussions around politics. Visually reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper, the resulting work acts as anthology of Azerbaijani slang.
HABIB SAHER
Waiting for Godot, 2016
Dried tree, plaster sculptures, timing mechanism
The sculptural installation, Waiting for Godot evokes the passing of time as the generic plaster heads fall off an old tree trunk throughout the duration of the exhibition. The heads smash against the floor and represent ephemerality of life and the transitory character of hard-engrained values. The work heralds reconnaissance and re
conciliation with the past through continuous renewal.
ILKIN HUSEYNOV
We Apologize for Temporary Inconvenience, 2016
Colour c-prints
Ilkin Huseynov's photographic cityscapes develop a portrait of a rapidly changing Baku. Large areas close off for construction every day signifying economic growth of the city. However, this often gives rise to social unrest from those wishing to preserve older buildings and ancestral homes. These sites are usually fenced off with banners that, albeit often put up to beautify the construction sites, end up dirty, fade away and get vandalized by other adverts. These posters depicting Baku's landmarks and utopian landscapes become apologies for 'Temporary Inconvenience', resonating as chants for a city continuously in flux.
RASIM BABAYEV
The Earth is Rich with Oil, 1976
Oil on MDF, 97 x 126 cm
Rasim Babayev is one of the key painters of Absheron School of painting. The group of artists sought to find visual language that was unique to their locality and fitting to express peculiarities of vernacular lifestyle, landscape and mythology. These artists completely ignored Socialist Realism and subverted imposed formal or thematic norms. The exhibited painting is executed in abstract expressionist style with vigorous brushstroke and thickly applied paint. The work belongs to the period in painter's oeuvre when he moved to a darker palette and through that aimed at condemning the evils of totalitarianism.
SITARA IBRAHIMOVA
Reflector, 2016
Naftalan / Picnic / First Night
Looped video projections, each 30 sec.
Sitara Ibrahimova's series of life-size projections depict the artist performing repetitive actions that remind of sacrilegious rituals. These GIF-like videos highlight prevailing issues of the socio-cultural reality of Azerbaijan. In the video Naftalan the artist tries to scrap off the oil from her body, musing on the resource's overwhelming significance in framing the collective unconscious of the country.
In the horizontally projected, Picnic, the artist brushes sand off of a picnic blanket spread on a landfill. The work comments on the acceleration of consumerist values and fetishistic fixation on private ownership after the demise of socialism. It starkly highlights a lack of social comradeship and cooperation, and indifference towards wider surroundings.
First Night is a critique of gender-biased stereotypes across the Caucasus region that infiltrates and dictates the social life in these countries. Central to these codes of behavior is female chastity, often leading to extreme measures such as Hymenoplasty (the surgical repair of a vaginal membrane) in order to conceal the sexual experiences of a woman. In this work Ibrahimova performs squats to reenact a common practice for testing against this intervention.
TAHIR SALAHOV
Homage to the Mothers, 1986
Oil on canvas, 110 x 100 cm
Tahir Salahov has come to be a key representative of the Severe Style in Socialist Realism that is recognized as the antithesis to Soviet academicism. Among the metaphorical and equivocal artworks of the artist, the portrait of his mother takes a pivotal place. Similar to Salahov's signature portraits, the painting defies all accepted norms of portraiture and depicts the figure from an unusual angle. The tranquil elderly woman looks out to the heavenly landscape and seems to be in conscious denial of the increasingly unstable post-perestroika reality around her.
TALAT SHIKHALIYEV
Portrait of a Young Man, 1986
Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
The painting can be perceived as an embodiment of internal rebellion and resistance to the foundations and stereotypes of the society. The portrait depicts a young intellectual that did not correspond to the accepted fashion of the time. Unnamed, the protagonist's posture and facial expression are suggestive of his dissident nature. His pensive facial expression that gives away discontent instantly captures attention, albeit wrapped in the mist of vibrant colors.
TOGRUL NARIMANBEKOV
Night in a Street, 1961
Oil on canvas, 65 x 70 cm
Pivotal figure in the Absheron School of painting, Narimanbekov, devoted his oeuvre to investigating the roots of Azerbaijani national identity. Night in a Street belongs to the period when Narimanbekov along with fellow artists was preoccupied with the search for 'the truth of life' and increasingly depicted scenes from daily life of urban environments. The painting depicts an empty cityscape unusually cropped and slightly distorted as if caught from the moving vehicle. The bold brushstroke gives a certain pace to the scene and gives away influences of the Severe Style on the artist's early works.
ZAMIR SULEYMANOV
Claim, 2016
Installation with 270 ceramic teapots, miniature flag of Azerbaijan
The generic ceramic teapots, found in traditional Azeri tea-houses chaykhana, form two arrows, one in the direction of Moscow and the other in that of Washington D.C., from the vantage point of the Azeri flag. The tradition of tea drinking is at the core of the vernacular culture of Azerbaijan and the ever-present teapots act as silent witnesses to intimate conversations and socio-political discussions associated with this communal leisure. Positing the two capitals as centers of the two major ideologies, the teapot formations portray two conflicting tendencies of a society at the crossroads of capitalist and socialist sentiments. The work highlights the relevance of belonging in a country that is in the process of vigorously redefining its identity.