• Combination of Ancient cultural codes and symbols of modern civilization
• The works by the leader of Kazakh artistic group “Kyzyl Tractor”
• Paintings, installation art, sculpture as well as videos of performance and intervention art

The exhibition is dedicated to the 70th Anniversary of the artist’s birth and is part of the “Modern Kazakhstan culture in the global world” project. The exhibition showcases the works created between 1989 and 2009, which include paintings, installation art, sculptures as well as archive films showing the artist’s performances. 

In the early 1990s and 2000s, the contemporary Kazakhstan art was created by the artists, whose names went on to gain prominence in Central Asia. Moldakul Narimbetov (1948 – 2012) was one of them. With his strong personality and rebellious charisma, the artist, despite being an accomplished painter, was able to master forms of art new to the Post-Soviet space, such as performance art, installations and actionism. Moldakul Narimbetov was a leader of the artistic group “Transavantgarde” founded in 1990 in Shymkent; the group was later renamed to “Kyzyl Tractor”. Its members were striving to find a way to assimilate the Avant-garde techniques of the Western art with the traditional attitudes of the Eastern culture. Their artistic concept was based on the return to Kazakhstan pre-Islamic past: to the Ancient ritual, a shaman’s trance state, or sufi ceremonies. In this case, the key image is either a wandering dervish, whose existence is driven by the search for truth and harmony, or a shaman, whose meditative rituals heal and unite the real and the unreal, the past, the present and the future. The exhibition presents the most important works by an artist, reflecting the period when the “Kyzyl Tractor” mythology was established. The movement is also known as ‘Transavant-garde shamanism” and, along with the other artistic groups, has become a regional expression of the Western post Avant-garde.  Moldakul Narimbetov was an original artist capable of finding and expressing his identity through the synthesis of the Ancient cultural codes and the symbols of the modern civilization. 

Project manager — Leonid Kochetov.

The curator of the exhibition — Rosa Abenova.

Exhibition coordinators — Malika Urazgalieva, Anar Mukhanova, Amina Gabdrashitova.