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BOOM-BOOM
The 4th Bishkek Contemporary Art Exhibition

Exhibition dates: 23 September - 7 October 2008
Opening date: 23 September
Workshop: 14-22 September
Conference: 24-26 September

Venues: Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts, Underground Spaces below Central Square, other venues in open sites

Curators of the project: Ulan Djaparov, Muratbek Djumaliev, Gulnara Kasmalieva

Organizers and coordinators: Muratbek Djumaliev, Gulnara Kasmalieva, "Art-East"
Mira ave 32-3, Bishkek 720044
Kyrgyzstan
tel/fax: +996 312 494537
email: mjumali@yandex.ru
http://arteast.ktnet.kg

Exhibition with participation of artists, architects and designers of the countries of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and Caucasus, Russia, China, Europe.

The main components of the project:

1. Simultaneous artistic project: the Cascoland project (Netherlands) with participation of Dutch artists and designers;

2. International conference with participation of international artists, art-critics, theorists of architecture.

3. Workshops with participation of young artists and designers in Bishkek university (supervisor: Ruben Arevshatyan (Yerevan)

4. Presentations, discussions

Boom-Boom

There is a boom of construction in almost all big cities of Central Asia (and the former USSR), in spite of general complaints about bad life. Huge amounts of money are invested, fantastic dividends are collected, great human and material resources are involved. But it is obvious, that there is a lack of systematic approach to the problems of cities, lack of professional specialists, deficit of ideas and just a thoughtful attitude to each concrete situation.
Gradually it is shaped dehumanized environment, a kind of aggressive hyper-text amidst which we have to live. An individual or a separate person cannot influence this process or present a worthy antithesis.

The following three approaches are dominating:

Ideologized approach (when the main task is to represent through architecture the ambitions of the authorities in power);
Absolutely pragmatic approach (when in spite of a concrete context the main task is to meet egoistic wishes of the national bourgeoisie);
Self-construction (for those who have no money, no opportunities, no good taste).

Search of national identity, which occupied for such a long time the heads of representatives of "creative intelligentsia", resulted in total profanation of the idea, i.e. creation of a new semi-official, engaged (by power - political, economic or criminal power) and anonymous architectural environment.

Probably, the time has come to transfer from the infinite "search" to the adequate approaches towards the realities, and special sensitivity to numerous nuances in each concrete situation.

At the institutional level (in policy, economy, and social life) some unwritten "laws" have been shaped for certain people and formal rules of play for others. After a revived hope in 1990-s, we have a new stagnation with a new generation of officials-bureaucrats. Only in local spaces (like culture and arts) it is possible to "resist", uphold and expand the base for "rare exclusions" from general rules.

The main question is whether it is possible to turn our many "disadvantages" (characterizing the current marginal in socio-cultural context situation) into advantages (relying on the diverse cultural, historical and natural resources); to turn a few even casual successful creative findings into a certain algorithm, a sustainable artistic phenomenon having a real impact on the cultural situation in the region.

It is necessary to transfer from general imitation of "pseudo-national style" or "high-tech", "neoclassic" (or other high styles) towards realistic for our region technologies, "grass-root" resources, potential capacities hidden in our problems themselves; from cloning and spreading archaicized images and samples towards actualization of each concrete situation and search of new plastic paradigms.

The implied exhibition project will have two main directions:
" artistic-critical comprehension of the current process of degradation (or transformation?) of the architectural environment in the countries of Central Asia (and in other similar regions);
" artistic task in itself: to shake down the habitual thinking, to focus on artistic re-comprehension of the basic data of archetypes underlying the creation of both dwelling and urban environments; to try to form precedents - artifacts relevant to the time, place and concrete situations.

Artists :

Ernst Abdrazakov , Lida Abdul , Yuri Avvakumov , Mger Azatyan , Janar Amankulov , Ruben Arevshatyan , Said Atabekov , Umida Ahmedova and Oleg Karpov , Dmitry Ahunbabaev , Armat Bektasov , Yevgeny Boykov , Nika Breithaupt , Elena and Victor Vorobyevs , Shailo Djekshenbaev , Marjolijn Dijkman , Natalia Dyu , Alexander Feodorov , Emil Guzairov , Shirin Homann - Saadat , Alimjan Jorobaev , Galina Konduchalova and Igor Lihterov , Sergey Kuznetsov , Alexander Lozhkin , Pavel Lozhkin , Ruth Maclennan , Vladimir Martynoff , Irina Maslikova , Erbol Meldibekov , Almagul Menlibaeva , Ruslan Muradov , Gaisha Madanova , Saken Narynov , Ekaterina Nikanorova , Alexander Nikolaev , Nurbossyn Oris, Vitaly Simakov , Georgy Tryakin - Buharov , Sergey Tychina , Alexander U , Yura ( Vyacheslav Useinov ), Jamshed Kholikov , Oksana Shatalova , Andrey Chernov , Jun Yang

Sattelite artistic project Cascoland:

Fiona de Bell, Bert Kramer, Jan Korbes, Bart Majoor, Gitte Nygaard, Roel Schoenmakers (The Netherlands )

Participants of the conference:

Yuri Avvakumov (Russia), Ruben Arevshatyan (Armenia), Gamal Bokonbaev (Kyrgyzstan), Jan Korbes (The Netherlands), Alexander Lozhkin (Russia), Pavel Lozhkin (Russia), Saken Narynov, Gitte Nygaard (The Netherlands), Elena Sorokina (Germany), Oksana Shatalova (Kazakhstan), Roel Schoenmakers (The Netherlands), Anouk de Clercq (Belgium), Jan Kempenaers (Belgium), Alterazioni Video (Italy), Yane Calovsky + Hristina Ivanoska,(Macedonia) , Franck Lebovici (France)