EXHIBITION- Kasmalieva/Djumaliev: New Silk Road, Winkleman Gallery, 11/13-1/10
Posted by: Winkleman Gallery <info@winkleman.com>
Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev: A New Silk Road
November 13 - January 10, 2009
Opening: Thursday, November 13, 6-8 pm
Gallery Hours: Tues Sat, 11- 6 pm
Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present "A New Silk Road," our
second solo exhibition by Kyrgyz artists Gulnara Kasmalieva and
Muratbek Djumaliev. Featuring photography and a stunning five-channel
video, commissioned in 2007 by the Art Institute of Chicago, together
this gorgeous body of work forms an essay on the local impact of
global economics.
Shot along the highways and small villages connecting China through
the Central Asian country Kyrgyzstan to the Western marketsone of the
actual routes that still form the renowned "Silk Road" Kassmalieva and
Djumaliev's images and video capture the determination and
resourcefulness that define this mountainous, poverty-stricken region.
As Lisa Dorin, Assistant Curator of the Art Institute of Chicago's
Department of Contemporary Art, wrote in her essay on the commission,
"The five-channel video installationprovides an abstract set of
instruction for resilience in the face of hardship." Indeed, the
central messages of "The New Silk Road" take on a wider poignancy as
the entire world begins to reel from an economic crisis that seems to
know no boundaries.
Subtitled "Algorithm of Survival and Hope," the five-channel video
presents a nearly hypnotic panorama of exquisitely edited scenes
juxtaposing the dilapidated Soviet trucks (that continuously break
down as they haul carriages of scrap metal from Central Asia into
China) against the caravan of shiny, behemoth Chinese 18-wheelers
barreling through the narrow passes filled with cheaply manufactured
good destined for European markets. Along the way, the residents of
the Kyrgyz farms and tiny towns exhibit stunning entrepreneurial
ingenuity in finding ways to bond with and benefit from the drivers of
both sets of trucks. Dorin summarized the piece beautifully, noting
"Devoid of nostalgia for the ancient Silk Road, with all of its
romantic connotations, the project foregrounds instead the
contradictory currents in the existence faced by the living, breathing
populations along these well-worn trade routes."
Gulnara Kasmalieva and Murtabek Djumaliev live and work in the Kyrgyz
capital, Bishkek, where they also organize and curate the highly
acclaimed international biennial "Bishkek Contemporary Art
Exhibition." In addition to a solo exhibition at the Art Institute in
Chicago in 2007, they have exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the
Singapore Biennial, the Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art, the
Montreal Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, and many
other international museums and biennial. Their work has been reviewed
in Artforum, Flash Art, Frieze, Art in America, and many other arts
publications.
For more information, please contact Edward Winkleman at 212.643.3152
or info@winkleman.com
Edward Winkleman
Owner / Director
Winkleman Gallery
637 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
T: 212.643.3152
F: 212.643.2040
edward@winkleman.com
www.winkleman.com
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