"Transformation of Space in Almaty"On August 14 th at 6.30 pm , the Soros Center for Contemporary Art (new address: Dostyq street , VIP-town Alem-2, sector 110, block B, tel.: 3 201-203/04) will host the presentation of the international multimedia art project “Transformation of Space in Almaty ”. The exhibit runs from 15 th till 25 th of August, 2007 Our art collective Artpologist consists of four people – Aminatou Echard from France, Daniel Gallegos from the USA, Zhanara Nauruzbayeva and Gaisha Madanova from Kazakhstan – and brings together art and anthropology. As a discipline, anthropology investigates the processes of the impact of society on the individual and vice versa. The subject of our project is the studios of Almaty artists. We have explored the spaces of Kuanysh Bazargaliev, Assel Kalieva, Galim Madanov, Irina Maslikova, Saken Narynov, Saule Suleimenova, Abdrashit Sydykhanov and Georgii Tryakin-Bukharov. These studios are not only separate micro-worlds where artists think and create but are also parts that reflect a larger macro-order, in our case, the city of Almaty . Hence, our main task is to concentrate on small private spaces in the context of large-scale transformations of the city. We want to show these small unique places to humanize the otherwise faceless transformations of the contemporary urban space. Using video recording, photography and interviewing as well as simply spending a long time underneath the roof of these buildings, we tried to understand the spirit of these studios and understand how artists live and work, and, ultimately, how these creative spaces fit into the context of the history of the city. Our task is not only to document the space as anthropologists do but also do it in an artistic way. Using video and text, painting and drawing, audio recording and photography, we have created an installation to try to recreate (of course, not directly) the atmosphere of private space of artist inside a public gallery. Another result of our project is the web-site: http://artpologist.net. We regard this site as an artwork. Here, we have documented the two-month-long intensive process of project work, including sketches, studies, impressions and thoughts in textual and graphic format. The current exhibition contains not only the works of four authors of the project but also the artworks of Galim Madanov, Georgii Tryakin-Bukharov, Irina Maslikova, and Assel Kalieva. Our new address: Dostyq street , VIP-town Alem-2 (behind the Luxor spa-center), sector 110, block B. back©SCCA 2001-2002 |