Turkestan vanguard

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In November 2009 the State Museum of Oriental will show "Turkestan avant-garde. On the concept of the exhibition, the creative idea and the problems "Afishe.Fergany.Ru" said one of the sponsors of the exhibition - Doctor of Arts Tigran Mkrtychev.

In 1934, the State Oriental Museum hosted the exhibition "Artists of Uzbekistan. Some of the paintings were brought to the astonishment of Moscow specialists, avant-garde in color and the overall artistic world view - but it was the avant-garde, which came not from the West and the East. In the pictures could tell the influence of European avant-garde, including the cubo-futurists, - but on canvases breathe refracted by all vanguard colors, medieval culture of Central Asia, with its monumental architecture, ornaments and Asian sun.

In the two years prior to the opening of the long exhibition, in 1932, came the famous decree "On the Reconstruction of Literary and Artistic Organizations", which led to the destruction of a variety of creative groups, especially the avant-garde. The country has escalated the fight against formalism, and the exhibition at the Museum of the East in general could be the last - to encourage the vanguard of anyone not allowed.

But the release of these pictures back to Uzbekistan museum workers did not want to, deciding to keep the funds at least part of the canvases. However, it was decided to "cover up" the new revenue by including them in duplicate and irrelevant research aid funds. This saved the paintings, which are no longer stumbling fans look distinct and direct social realism.

It has been 75 years. And in November 2009, the State Museum of Oriental plans to get a unique fabric from the store, to attract private collectors and organize an exhibition of "Turkestan avant-garde. The selection of paintings and graphic works carried out one of the sponsors of the exhibition Mladá Khomutova and one of the curators of the future exhibition Ekaterina Ermakova.

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Until now, such a concept - "the vanguard of Turkestan" - in art criticism was not. Artists who worked in 1920-30-ies in Central Asia, are well known, their creativity has been studied and studied. However, the curators of the exhibition at the Museum of East offer a look at their work as a whole, as an artistic phenomenon, and to enter into scientific use the term "vanguard of Turkestan", denoting his artistic direction that emerged in the fine arts of Central Asia in 1920-30-ies.

The exhibition will feature paintings and drawings of famous masters "Turkestan vanguard," as Alexander Volkov, V. Ufimtsev, N. Karahan, Korovay, AN Kashin, O. Tatevosyan, U. Tansykbaev, P. Shchegolev, V. Yeremyan, M. Gaidukevich, M. Kurzin - and other, lesser-known artists, find new ways in art. They all went to the East for fresh artistic impression, in search of new forms and a world view - and many have appeared in Turkestan before the revolution ... And in Central Asia seemed to have bewitched their Asian Paints, monumental architecture and the eternal recurrence of ornaments. The avant-gardists and followers European school of painting facing east artistic tradition - and from the collision of the multi-colored sparks flew.

Of course, this was a process of mutual influence. For the exhibition "Turkestan vanguard" of the museum's storerooms and private collections would get the traditional men's robes of those years. Traditional drawings striped bekasabov so avant-garde that they would envy any contemporary designer. Although this half-silk fabrics were the usual material for a more or less elegant clothes. "We specifically selected gowns from tissues with a large geometric pattern to compare them with the paintings" - says "Afishe.Fergany.Ru" one of the sponsors of the exhibition, Doctor of Arts Tigran Mkrtychev.

Painting and Uzbek textiles, which can be called "negligent vanguard", will be equal at this exhibition, and unexpected combination will see the unity of the general artistic process at that time. The exhibition features more than a dozen men's robes, sewn together from semi-silk fabrics: bekasaba, with bright striped pattern, and adras with curlicue. Looking at the gowns and linens, I remember the construction of many art critics, who considered the birthplace of European avant-garde Asia. "This is the moment at which many are speculating, and I do not know how these baseless speculation, - said Tigran Mkrtychev. - I heard about a collector who said he was never to buy Kandinsky, but he can buy ikat, a Uzbek patterned fabric ... "

That epoch in the whole of Turkestan was the collision of tradition and avant-garde. The life of people around was, on the one hand, just slow and of little value, as a thousand years ago, but on the other - the revolution brought with it the tectonic shifts of habitual attitudes. Organizers of the exhibition hope that they will be able to find money in order to simulate one of the museum's halls Country Club: linen screen, wooden benches, on the walls - the original slogans of those years from the collections of the Museum: "Down with the veil," "dehkans all countries Unite! "," Down with ignorance! "And on the screen - simple to jimjams newsreels of those years, including footage and the first Uzbek cameraman Khudaybergenov Divanova. One of the curators of the exhibition's curator Ekaterina Ermakova and film programs of the Museum of East Anastasia Patlay already identified in the chronicle Rossii'skom gosudarstvennom archive film and photos, and those who come to the exhibition will see, and how 80 years ago raised the Uzbeks in the Osh Suleiman mountain, and then as women dropped the veil ...

- I think that the greatest impetus to the work of artists whose work we will show, gave the revolution - said the deputy director of the Museum of East Tigran Mkrtychev. - Then there is a real opportunity to participate in the creation of new art, new man, and it is their inspiration.

Afisha.Fergana.Ru: - Is it in Asia, too, so strong was the desire to create new art? It seemed as if it were, rather, the mood of revolutionary Moscow and Leningrad ...

- Of course, in Asia, too, was all that! However, in Turkestan had its own specificity. There were no artists in the traditional, European sense of the word. There existed a miniaturist, were artists who painted various ornaments, walls and ceilings of architectural structures. And artists Easel almost was not. And the revolutionary fuse avant-garde artists who found themselves in Turkestan, was to create an entirely new direction in the art of the Muslim East. We had to teach people to paint as depicted in Europe. And, indeed, have been established to different schools, from Ashgabat to Tashkent, and they tried to grow a new artist ... It is well known, for example, that in 1922 Ufimtsev together with his friend arranged in Samarkand futuristic evening. A total of three hundred miles from there was the medieval Bukhara ...

Afisha.Fergana.Ru: - The novelty was in figurative art? The Koran in fact forbids depicting a man? Or not?

- This is a myth of art criticism of the twentieth century, created by European and Soviet historians of art. In Islam there is no absolute ban on images of living beings, there are various reservations like the one that people can not be like the Creator. Creator creates a kind of creature and gives it soul. The artist, when figurative drawing, also creates a kind of creature. And it was thought that the Day of Judgment artist will share a piece of his soul with those he created. It was, shall we say, not good. It's not that it was forbidden to depict the man - in fact in Islamic art and a miniature, and wall paintings and small sculptures, and ceramics ... The overall style of art in the Muslim world, which is not descriptive, and decorative. The emphasis there is on the ornament and calligraphy, word, through which passed the meaning of Islam, rather than the image, and in this - the fundamental difference between Islamic art from Europe.

Afisha.Fergana.Ru: - And then what happened to the avant-garde artists?

- Central Asia, after all, even in 1930 continued to be a kind of sanctuary. And when there swept a wave of anti-formalism, artists just "downgraded" from them began to demand other things. And they obeyed. I can not say whether they stepped through with a strongly whether ourselves broke - I just do not know ... But it is obvious that subjects changed their work. Appeared more monumental canvases, narrative, focusing on specific current events, multi-figured compositions "picking cotton, or captured any holidays or written on the memories of the war with Basmachi ... portraits of the foremost emerging production, farmers ... But no matter whose it is a portrait -- here interesting aspect of man ... they also painted posters - visual propaganda was needed ...

- But you're going to show at the exhibition not only paintings 1920-30s, but the sixties. Why?

- This is also a little mythological situation, but it actually exists. Many artists who were forced to write very differently from the mid-thirties, suddenly during the thaw came back to his youthful style of painting. Maybe it's the return allowed them to prove to themselves that they have not lost myself. There is a legend that told me Lazarus Izrailevich Rempel, the largest specialist on the art of Central Asia. One of the heroes of our exhibitions - Ural Tansykbaev studied in Perm, his early works were done under the strong influence of Matisse. In these works could tell a strange influence of the West, which morphed into the East. Ural Tansykbaev lived all his life in Uzbekistan has reached great heights - even the head, while Kazakh Union of Artists of Uzbekistan ... He already had a name in art, his works were known ... But internal dissent that he was doing was so great that some point he decided he'd rather not continue. All the cast - and went to Perm to start all over again ... And by the way he died. This is a legend, but it explains a lot about the spirit and creativity of those "Turkestan avant-garde.

Exhibition nearly prepared. About seventy paintings and drawings, ten or fifteen posters from the museum's collection, about thirty paintings and drawings from private collections. Unique photos, postcards, bathrobes, newsreels ... There are all necessary.

Not enough small. This exhibition wants to draw and conceptually - which means that somewhere drape and hide the architecture of Russian manor, which the Museum. Create an environment club of 30-ies. Published a catalog - because an informed introduction to the scientific use of the new term does not occur every day and must be accompanied by a high-quality publication.

We appeal to the sponsors - the case of the Museum, but we assert that invented the museum exhibition is unique and will attract close attention of world experts on the vanguard. And if the exhibition will also conceptualized - that people will stand in line to get on it. Because harmony curatorial ideas are now also attracts no less than the art itself.