Erbosyn Meldebekov. My brother my enemy. 2002

On 7th June the UK channel More4 featured a program on modern Kazakh art “Kazakhstan Swings”.

In this program, art critic of the Times Waldemar Januszczak presents the modern art of Kazakhstan. He seemed to be impressed by the vitality and hospitality of the people he met in his travels throughout Kazakhstan. He was also impressed by the evident desire of many ordinary Kazkhs to own and collect fine art.

As the description goes,

“indeed it’s hard not to be impressed by Rustam Khalfin, a man who’s suffered two strokes but still managed to record a remarkable performance in which a soldier recreates the old Kazakh custom of making love to a woman on a galloping horse. Elsewhere, there’s a man who allows his face to be repeatedly slapped on camera in order to satirise the corrupt local regime, a woman who recorded herself sitting on the toilet in pink pyjamas and talking about Naomi Campbell, a car dealer who shows paintings alongside his Toyotas because he’s now realised it’s not just cars that are “the very pinnacle of life” and, strangest of all, ‘The Red Tractor Group’ a group of men who dress as nomadic shamans, beat leather drums and eat horsemeat and noodles as an art statement.”

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the program myself, but my friends in the UK have, and here is what they wrote to me: “There was a strange man letting himself slap on the cheeks in front of people as a symbol, - crazy, but he was very intelligent when he spoke. They showed part of Asthana, the capital, and some other strange things. I am sure there is a lot of good less eccentric art, and it did not, of course show a “normal” Kazakhstan, and it was not meant to, but it was very interesting.”

It is true that most of the Kazakh modern art which made it to international scene is shocking. Since so little is known about the country, the art that would underline the exotic part of Kazakhstan, will probably attract more attention from abroad. However, for artists like Rustam Khalfin, or, Erbosyn Meldebekov, who outraged people by slaughtering the sheep at one of his installations, it would be especially difficult to count on state support or public recognition in Kazakhstan.

Valeria Ibraeva, Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Almaty, says :

“…both the “Tractors” and the Khalfin groups try to restore the broken line of natural artistic development, which, coded in applied forms and shamanistic performances not yet seen as true art, existed in Kazakhstan even as far back as the end of the last century… the fact of sheep slaughtering within a sacral space alludes to the first book of Moses, but such actions do regularly take place in rural areas of Kazakhstan… If the contemporary art of Kazakhstan is referred to as cruel, it is because our life in Kazakhstan is not a bed of roses.”