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Insights. Contemporary Art of Kazan. XX-XXI

Exhibition August 11 − October 2, 2022
august 11 - October 2, 2022
The opening will take place on August 11 at 19:00
Curator - Sergey Balandin
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The Victoria Gallery and the Smena Cultural Center are presenting an exhibition of contemporary art in Kazan, covering one hundred years of its history, as part of a partnership exchange.
The exhibition brings together artists of the avant-garde of the 1920s, the classics of official and unofficial art of Soviet Tatarstan, the work of SCB "Prometheus", works of 1990-2000-ies and young art of Kazan.

Eastern culture with its bright and contrasting color combinations, special attention to calligraphy and folk folklore gave impetus to formal searches and artistic experiments in creativity. Thanks to this, the region, for which the classical European pictorial tradition had long been alien, easily fitted into the international project of modernist and contemporary art. The combination of Eastern Muslim visual code and progressive, innovative ideas of Kazan, famous as one of the oldest universities in Russia, was the key to the creation of a unique cultural environment. It had its own avant-garde, its own abstractionism, its own pioneers of light-kinetic art and its own special method of working with the theme of memory and heritage.

The art of Tatarstan has always, in one way or another, been associated with the search for ornamentation and color. This is why abstraction was in such demand among the artists of the Kazan avant-garde: from the graphics of the young artists of the "Horseman" association in the 1920s and the thawed watercolors of Baki Urmanche to the paintings of the 1990s by Rinat Nasyrov and the latest works by Ramin Nafikov. The sixties, with their cosmic sweep, breathed new life into the art of the USSR, when Bulat Galeev, on the basis of the Kazan Aviation Institute, created the "Prometheus" design bureau and the laboratory for creating light and music apparatus and the development of synaesthetic art. This attention to light is continued in his installations by the young author Sasha Shardak. Along with futuristic projects for the space industry, "Prometheus" was also engaged in a rethinking of the architectural environment of Kazan and the problems of Muslim identity in the 20th century. The legend of Suyumbika, the Tatar queen who became a hostage of Ivan the Terrible, is one of the most popular subjects in the Republic. Such different artists as Evgeny Golubtsov and Yana Mikhalina turn to her image. Ilgizar Khasanov has been making sense of the Soviet past through color and object life for many years. Traditional techniques such as embroidery and ceramics are used by Anastasia Morozova and Zukhra Salakhova to talk about today.

Works for the exhibition are provided by the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Galeev-Prometheus Foundation, collectors and artists.

Entrance to the opening is free. The rest of the days - 200 rubles and 100 rubles (preferential).
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