New frontiers for contemporary art

Resurgent Orientalism and the mythical past smoothly combine with a 21st century world view in an exhibition of Central Asian contemporary art.

To be opened in the summer, this exhibition will continue Kiasma’s dialogue with contemporary art from the former Soviet Union. This time, the perspective will be even wider, encompassing such countries as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Due to geography and their rich natural resources, many of these countries are a target of keen political and economic interest. The formation of a new national identity in the region is informed by a rich cultural tradition, steeped in the nomadic lifestyle, shamanism, as well as in Islam.

The Soviet heritage and new Western influences are also present. All these influences emerge in the work of contemporary artists. Their works make a conscious break with exotic oriental stereotypes, on the one hand, or, on the other, deal with topical political or social themes. The expert in putting together this exhibition is the Moscow critic and curator Viktor Misiano, who has travelled extensively in the relevant countries and helped to put them on the artistic map of the world.

One of the works of art in our exhibition is Kazakhstan. Blue Period by the Kazakhstan artist couple Jelena Vorobieva and Viktor Vorobiev.As they were travelling around Kazakhstan, they were intrigued by the fact that the colour red, so ubiquitous during the Communist regime, had been replaced by colour blue. In Kazakh, the colour is called kok, which denotes both blue and green, so actually it refers to a kind of turquoise. “The Kazakhs love blue. If you have to paint something, choosing the colour is never a problem: it will always be kok,” artists say.

-Jari-Pekka Vanhala