Oriented on making people closer

The painting exhibition “Our Asia” continues in Ivanovo, which ORIENT not only talked about, but also helped find Turkmen works for the project. In December, among the canvases of Eastern artists who decorated the ArtHab gallery of contemporary art, there will be sounded poems by Asian poets, including Magtymguly.

The curator of the exhibition, Elizaveta Chuprikova-Krynskaya, said that the poetic performance had already been shown at the opening of the exhibition. At that time, Turkmen authors uttered lines not only from Magtymguly, but also from Kemine. Now the gallery is choosing readers for a new event, and is also casting models for a fashion show of evening dresses from Marina Kutenkova. The festival program will be enhanced by the vocals of Antony Shilov and a curated tour of “Our Asia”.

A cheerful flash mob was also spontaneously launched at the exhibition, during which guests repeated such lively facial expressions from the image captured in paint on the carpet, which literally became a canvas for the master Kostya Layer from Nizhny Novgorod. His series of extremely unusual graffiti is dedicated to oriental beauties.

Elizaveta Chuprikova-Krynskaya shared another piece of news. The organizers of the exhibition “Our Asia” were unexpectedly and pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from Turkey from Ender Marufoglu, the grandson of the most venerable participant in the project, Alexander Kashirsky from Ashgabat. You can get acquainted with his works in the gallery through a video series.

“My grandfather is far from Turkey, but thanks to the project and the gallery, he helps bring our countries closer together,” the letter notes. This message was illustrated at the exhibition with Alexander Kashirsky’s “Mevlane” graphics, dedicated to the cult of Turkish dervishes.

A new look at Central Asia during the exhibition was formed by the works of authors from all countries of the region. Turkmenistan was represented there by Kashirsky. The video in which his works are presented serves not only educational, but also the function of musical dramaturgy in the project.

Alexander Andreevich sent more than ten digital works for “Our Asia,” very diverse in theme and purpose: examples of oil painting, photos of wooden reliefs and sculptures, bronze bas-reliefs.

Elizaveta Chuprikova-Krynskaya was surprised by the literal collision of the European and the Oriental in the work of the Ashgabat artist, which generally reflects the traditional academic approach and training: “This was especially evident in the clear lines of the bas-reliefs: the author was inspired, on the one hand, by famous Turkmen personalities, such as the opera singer Medeniet Shakhberdieva, children's poet Kayum Tangrykuliev, composer Chary Nurymov, but also Russian-French artist Zinaida Serebryakova, sculptor Sergei Konenkov, writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, Norwegian and English composers Edvard Grieg and Eduard Elgar.”

It is noteworthy that in total Alexander Andreevich has about fifty bronze personalities; in Turkmenistan, no one else is working in this direction.

Leonid KIYASHKO, ORIENT special correspondent,
Guild of Interethnic Journalism, Union of Journalists of Russia (Ivanovo)

Photo: from the ArtHub archive