Contemporary Art in Central Asia: Sven Spieker in Conversation with Dastan Kozhakhmetov
Sven Spieker: A key theme in Western discussions of contemporary art in Kazakhstan and Central Asia in general is the Soviet legacy. Some of the most recognizable Central Asian artists today were born under Soviet rule. What’s your view of the complex legacies of the Soviet experience–including its presumed colonial aspects–and on the way these surface, or do not surface, in contemporary art from the region?
Dastan Kozhakhmetov: It’s impossible not to notice the colonial tools, strategies, tactics, and the overall colonial attitude of Soviet power in Central Asia. As a result, the Soviet past became part of the constantly mutating post-Soviet Central Asian identity, and as such it is of essential interest. In discussions of Kazakh contemporary art, or Central Asian contemporary art more generally, it is usually assumed that the generation of artists who emerged in the late 1980s and early ‘90s performed a radical ideological and aesthetic break with the traditions of Socialist Realism. While such a break certainly did take place, I believe it would be interesting to clarify what part of the Soviet era’s DNA contemporary art and its infrastructure in the region inherited. Which elements of the Soviet era have disappeared, which have atavistically remained, and which have been adapted to our contemporary moment, and thus evolved?
In Kazakhstan, European-style art emerged in the early 20th century as a tool of forced modernization, along with the establishment of Soviet power. Moreover, in Kazakhstan(From 1925 to 1936, the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic; from 1936 to 1991, it existed as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR.), art was constructed in a perfectly pure manner, free from modernist admixtures. This distinguished Kazakhstan from the neighboring, newly minted Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan where artists during their formative years were influenced by the modernist ideas that were, for a time, flourishing in their metropolitan centers.
Socialist Realism was a general concept formulated in the early 1930s by the Soviet regime, a political mandate whose basic doctrine was to “create art that is national in form and socialist in content.” For provincial regions such as the Central Asia, this postulate laid the foundation for ethnographic exoticization and self-exoticization, and it established a process of self-identification based on the colonial subject as a bon sauvage, the noble (good) savage (“noble” or “good” in the sense of being slightly modernized based on Socialist principles). The first regional socialist realist artists, such as Abilkhan Kasteev (1904-1973) in Kazakhstan, Gapar Aitiev (1912-1984) in Kyrgyzstan, Oral Tansykbaev (1904-1974) in Uzbekistan, and Bashim Nurali (1900-1965) in Turkmenistan cosplayed these noble savages, Soviet-style, with varying degrees of sincerity, awareness, and acceptance.
In the early 1930s, institutional reforms were carried out in the Central Asian republics, including the creation of national artists’ unions and institutions promoting the new way of life and the new world. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, Kasteev, Aitiev , Tansykbaev, Nurali, and several other artists were identified as the “founders” of national art schools.
SS: How do you see the development of art in the region after the breakup of the Soviet Union?
DK: The first generation of post-Soviet artists, mature and established, began their careers in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. One of them, unfortunately now deceased, Rustam Khalfin (1949-2008), is persistently labelled by some within the community as the “founder of contemporary art in Kazakhstan/Central Asia,” and is hailed as a classic and patriarch of contemporary art in Kazakhstan/Central Asia. A similar situation exists with Vyacheslav Akhunov, who partly through his own efforts and partly with the support of his followers, also claims to be the “founder of contemporary art in Uzbekistan/Central Asia.” In my view, we are witnessing a continuation of the tradition of the institution of “founders” or “progenitors” of national art schools that emerged almost a hundred years ago in the Soviet Union. Just as the founders of Socialist Realism were once venerated, now the critics of Socialist Realism, and the critics of everything Soviet more generally, are presented, and present themselves, as “pioneers.” The archaic Soviet mechanism continues to operate, in a seemingly alien environment, as an echo of the totalitarian cult of personality.
In the wake of the destruction of the Socialist bloc and the loss of its eponymous “content”, the Central Asian bons sauvages who preserved their “national forms” acquired a global audience. As part of their efforts to find something new, the question arose: “Is it possible for a resident of the periphery to avoid exploiting the trivial image of the noble (kind) savage?” Different artists from the post-Soviet, formally independent Central Asian states answer this question differently, but this essential and fundamental question for the region’s art production really stems from the Soviet past, like so much else.
SS: It seems that with the successful Bukhara Biennial and the opening of the Almaty Museum of Art, Central Asian art has finally secured a place for itself on the global art circuit. What is your view on this phenomenon and its implications for art production in the region?
DK: My familiarity with the Bukhara Biennale is limited, so I’ll refrain from commenting. But it’s clear that after forty years of formal independence, the authorities of some Central Asian states have turned their attention to contemporary art. In my opinion, at this point, this looks like this follows the Machiavellian precept “if you can’t control it, try to lead it.” We are clearly not seeing any interest from official or semi-official institutions in the most challenging or problem-oriented contemporary art or its creators, but rather in a glamorous and escapist, official version of censored and state-run contemporary art that runs high on narcissism and self-exoticization.
Almaty Museum of Art, Almaty
The same applies to the new museum in Almaty, which shows the eclectic collection of businessman Nurlan Smagulov, its owner and founder. Strictly speaking, this is not a museum of contemporary art, as is already suggested by its name “Almaty Museum of Art.” The museum’s permanent exhibition does not create a coherent stylistic or thematic impression. Most of it consists of works of art from Kazakhstan from the mid-20th century to the present day, juxtaposed with several highly heterogeneous iconic contemporary works by Richard Serra, Yayoi Kusama, Anselm Kiefer, and Bill Viola. When we look at the Kazakh works in Smagulov’s collection, we realize that it represents all, or practically all, the key names in the history of Kazakh art since its Socialist Realist beginnings. The museum opened with two exhibitions: a group show curated by chief curator Inga Lace that combined works by Kazakhstani and Central Asian artists from various eras with a very small number of works by contemporary artists, somewhat awkwardly displayed under the title Konaqtar (Guests).
There was also the retrospective of Almagul Menlibayeva, I Understand Everything, curated by Gridtiya Gavivong. The Menlibayeva showreflected the artist’s creative path in considerable detail, its clarity and measuredness contrasting with the conceptual and visual chaos of the Konaktar exhibition. The third part of the permanent exhibition are five highlights by some of the superstars of global contemporary art: Crossroads by Richard Serra, Love Calls by Yayoi Kusama , Anselm Kiefer’s Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (When These Works Burn, They Will Finally Cast a Little Light), Bill Viola’s Stations, and Fernand Léger’s Woman with a Parrot.
Questions do arise regarding the conceptual, thematic, and stylistic criteria for the selection of these works. Was the goal to showcase the diversity of the contemporary art world? Even though it contains a comprehensive collection of artists from Kazakhstan’s art history, the Kazakhstani portion of Smagulov’s collection lacks significant, iconic, or seminal works. This is understandable— most of these works, particularly those from the 1920s through the ‘80s, ended up in the A. Kasteev National Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan (hereinafter, the Kasteev Museum), also located in Almaty. In fact, the portion of Smagulov’s collection covering the period before the 1990s looks like a minimalist version of the Kasteev Museum collection, consisting of sketches and drafts for the completed works that can be found inside the state museum. Smagulov has a special relationship with the Kasteev museum which he has supported as a donor, for example by gifting it Andy Warhol’s portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy. Perhaps the idea to create his own museum came to him after observing the ongoing financial problems at Kazakhstan’s main museum, which is stuck in the Soviet past.
The Almaty Museum of Art is Almaty’s Kasteev Museum 2.0, its post-Soviet, postmodern, late-capitalist remake for the 21st century. Even the architecture hints at this. The Kasteev Museum building is a strict rectangular volume with a glass pyramidal dome, while the Almaty Museum of Art’s cubes, after shedding their right angles, create the impression of a somewhat deformed or mutated Kasteeev, with the metal and aluminum bars in the entrance area, the canopy, and the balcony jutting out from its eastern façade. The Museum of Art is reminiscent of certain Almaty shopping malls that are also owned by Smagulov, and designed by the same team of British architects. The museum is clad in aluminum and light Jurassic sandstone from Germany, some of which, according to Smagulov himself, bears the imprints of dinosaur skeletons and other prehistoric animals. The light stone cladding of both buildings adds to their kinship, perhaps intentionally so, and it works to reinforce the allusions to Almaty’s Soviet architecture that frequently used pink shell rock.
SS: What’s your take on the chances for institutions such as the Almaty Museum of Art to remain independent from outside interference?
Despite its private ownership, the museum could not have been created without government support and the loyal relationship between the government and businessman Smagulov. My question here is this: “Can this new institution that has the financial resources to implement art projects at any scale or complexity, and that aspires to be at a minimum a serious regional player be expected to systematically support controversial art projects focused on the critical analysis of political and social reality, including the actions of the government and big business in our region?”
A partial answer to this question was given by a conspicuous omission in the Menlibayeva retrospective. One of the artist’s latest series of works, entitled 22 January (Qantar 22) and created using artificial intelligence, is dedicated to the events of so-called Bloody January 2022 in Almaty. At that time, 227 people were killed and over 9,900 were arrested during a week-long violent unrest and crackdowns. These events took place not far from where the museum now stands, and before its construction began. It’s unclear why 22 January was not included in the show: did the artist herself not want to show this politically sensitive work, or did the museum decide against it?
By the way, while I am critical of much of Menlibaeva’s video and photographic work, including her recent uses of artificial intelligence, at the same time, it’s clear that the artist has courageously navigated the many twists and turns of her career. Already during her student years in the 1980s, she enjoyed a reputation as a vibrant, talented, freedom-loving, and rebellious artist, a reputation she went on to cement in the 1990s. Her expressive, semi-abstract oil and felt paintings —sincere, passionate, witty, and inventive—rightly enjoy great success. It’s also worth noting the enormous influence Menlibaeva has had on other artists and on local design in Kazakhstan; she was a true rock star, or a “punk shamanist,” as she called herself. And in the best traditions of rock stars, Menlibayeva, at the height of her success, abandoned painting and felt, the very materials that had brought her success, and left Kazakhstan. Once abroad she tried to reinvent her art—this time with a focus on video—a difficult and perhaps illusory, but again courageous undertaking. It’s hard to fathom why a work as important as 22 January was not included in her retrospective, if not for reasons of opportunism.
Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture, Almaty
SS: Before the Almaty Museum of Art opened, in the Fall of 2025, another art institution programmatically focused on supporting contemporary ideas in the arts, the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture (CIMAM), opened in Almaty. Do you see any similarities with the Almaty Museum of Art in terms of the two institutions’ mission and programming?
DK: It’s remarkable to what degree these two projects, their successes and failures, run parallel to each other, beginning with their inaugural shows. The equivalent of the Almaty Museum of Art’s Konaqtar exhibition, at the Tselinny, was Documentation: Imagination of Central Asia on the Map of Contemporary Art, curated by Asel Rashidova. The show was conceptually and stylistically consistent in the sense that it featured exclusively first-generation Central Asian contemporary artists: Yerbosyn Meldibekov, Vyacheslav Akhunov, Kanat Ibragimov, Elena and Viktor Vorobyov, Ulan Dzhaparov, Kyzyl Tractor, Almagul Menlibayeva, among many others. Yet there were problems as well. Konaqtar included Kazakh artists of all styles and eras, and even some artists from neighboring countries who didn’t necessarily have a lot in common with each other. “Documentation” in the show’s title hints at its large number of archival materials, including dozens of newspaper articles, and video pieces related to contemporary art in Central Asia between the 1990s and the early 2000s that were crammed into in what is arguably the smallest space at the center.
Documentation: Imagination of Central Asia on the Map of Contemporary Art served as the backdrop for a theatrical ethno-folklore music performance entitled Barsakelmes, which was based on a script with the title “Bosaga – Transition. The Fabric of Understanding Ancestral Memory” by Gulnur Mukazhanova, Almagul Menlibayeva’s younger sister. The large installation in the form of a tower with various jagged peaks was covered in felt of various acidic colors, mostly red. According to Mukazhanova, the tower was meant to represent a portal between the spiritual world of the Kazakhs and the world of the nomads.The tower-portal had six passages, resembling doorways at the center of each of the tower’s six walls. Its interior was decorated with white felt, apparently symbolizing the “brightness” of the Kazakh inner world. Clearly, this work was a resounding failure. With its pretentious mythology, naively intended to evoke sacred awe and lofty feelings, it produced the exact opposite. The tower’s simple, if not primitive structure made it look pitiful, like an unfinished prop, and the hallucinogenic colors of its felt exterior evoked comical thoughts of stereotypical hippies and their experiments with prohibited substances rather than sacred, intangible connections between different generations of nomads. The concentration of self-exoticism per square centimeter in this large installation was simply off the charts.
The heterogenous but significant selection of artworks shown at the Tselinny has a worthy companion in the building’s architecture after its reconstruction by the British architect Asif Khan. In this instance, architectural postmodernism for once works in a non-trivial manner by delicately reinterpreting Soviet modernism. The former cinema building that now houses the Center was severely dilapidated and had been disfigured over the years by renovations. It received a new look that is, in my opinion, aesthetically superior to the original, even if it would perhaps have been more convincing if Asif Khan’s original plan for a stained-glass façade rotated at a 45-degree angle had been implemented, which would have created a sense of ethereal ascent encompassing the entire eastern façade.
SS: What are the main strategies, in your view, that artists from the region are deploying to assert their positions? Several trends can be identified: first, an attempt to resist official historical narratives through counter-narratives based on spirituality and local culture, as well as personal and family histories. Second, developping emancipatory models (especially feminism, queer identity, decolonization, etc.) that consider the specific culture and history of Central Asia. And third, what is known as the (post-) Soviet Anthropocene , the degradation of nature, and the importance of ecology and ecological thinking. How do you view these strategies, and to what extent are they successful?
DK: These strategies and the related thematic interests of Central Asian artists are partially determined by generational differences. Those artists who began their career in the 1980s and ‘90s in the spirit of the intellectual trends and narratives of that time naturally turn to themes related to the (post-) Soviet Anthropocene, while artists who emerged in recent decades, in the context of contemporary global narratives and discourses, attempt to integrate and adapt the emancipatory models of Marxism, feminism, decolonization, and so forth.
Among both generations, there are those who critically examine official political and historical narratives, with varying degrees of success. What’s at stake here is less a programmatic blueprint that an artist or a group of artists adheres to or promotes—though that, of course, can also be important—but the ability to produce high-quality art. And while it may seem hypothetical and theoretical, we do in fact have specific examples of aesthetic success and failure in many different forms.
In the 2010s and ‘20s, for example, several successful women artists emerged in the region who incorporated a feminist message into their artistic, political, and civic agendas, among them Saodat Ismailova and Gulnur Mukazhanova. However, in my view, their art is characterized by a conceptual contradiction. On the one hand, they subscribe to progressive narratives regarding the need for women’s emancipation; yet on the other hand, they sacralize the archaic nature of Central Asia’s ancient and medieval past and treat it as a manifestation of a special kind of spirituality and aesthetics. And even as one is in full solidarity with the feminist agenda, it’s hard to overlook the fact that this contradiction all too often leads to an inexpressive or poorly mediated form. A similar imbalance of content and form exists in my opinion in queer art and in fact in all leftist art from the region.
I want to briefly mention one example of a Kazakhstani artist who has successfully escaped these contradictions, Yerbossyn Meldibekov. Especially in its early stages, his work can also be viewed as ethnographic self-exoticization including the ”noble savage.” However, in Meldibekov’s case, self-irony and self-distance were always in play as well. Subsequently, in the 1990s and 2000’s, a gradual rejection of self-exoticization became visible in his work, coupled with its replacement by conceptual analysis. What makes Meldibekov’s work compelling is his radical development of a “national form” born from Socialist Realism. In the 1990s, self-exoticization was fueled by the search for self-identity, which became relevant in culture and the arts. The most striking examples here are the Kyzyl Traktor group; Almagul Menlibayeva; and Rustam Khalfin, among others. But perhaps Meldibekov’s example is the most successful, as he managed to truly transcend the boundaries of the exotic to find new forms of representation. The artist’s self-exoticization was always devoid of idealization, and his self-analysis sober, with few illusions.
SS: While there are many attempts to (re)write the history of contemporary art in Central Asia, these efforts are primarily being carried out by academic scholars and critics in the West. How do you assess this situation, and what impact does it have on efforts in Kazakhstan to develop critical art journalism that could serve as a productive forum for discussing artists’ ideas?
DK: This is a real problem for the Central Asian art scene. I don’t want to uncritically score banal anti-Soviet points, but in this case, the root of the problem really lies in the Soviet past. Very little remains of Soviet art historical research on Central Asian art, even official research. Strictly speaking, the social demand for art historical research in Soviet times was not really for research or analysis, but for various kinds of propaganda. If you strip Soviet professional texts on Central Asian art of their propagandistic, ideological veneer, what remains are essentially catalogues and inventories. The number of truly analytical texts is very small. Also, the task of an art historian and art theorist was incomprehensible and even meaningless in the societies of Soviet Central Asia; they were understood at best as chroniclers or exhibition docents. A critique of Socialist Realism was nonexistent, as was any kind of critical production. In the small underground community of Almaty, additionally, there was no archivist who could have systematically preserved information about the activities of non-official artists in Kazakhstan. This nonexistence or total insignificance of critical art history persisted at least for the first years after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
In the second half of the 1990s, the situation improved somewhat. At that time, magazine and newspaper articles covering the first contemporary art exhibitions in Kazakhstan emerged, often written by journalists without formal art historical training. At times, this criticism took a rather aggressive form and gave voice to the conservative tastes of its authors. The few art historians and critics who wrote on contemporary art tended to naturally defend it. Then there were the art critics who wrote about certain artists and their work, although their often well-founded critiques were not publicized widely, both out of ideological solidarity and to protect the fragility of the fledgling Central Asian contemporary art scene that needed a chance to assert itself. At the same time it must be said that art critics, art historians, curators, and theorists were not able to keep pace with artists who were generally more progressive than they were. This is why the wide gap separating the significant symbolic capital of Central Asian contemporary artists, on the one hand, and that of Central Asian contemporary art historians, critics, or theorists is not a coincidence, and indeed justified.
Art analysis and criticism are only just emerging in our region. Incidentally, in recent years, we’ve seen a rise in the number of capable theoreticians of contemporary art in the regions: Valeria Ibrayeva, who is currently giving a series of lectures on the history of contemporary art in Kazakhstan at the Almaty Museum of Art that will be published as a book; Georgy Mamedov whose series of lectures on the history of Central Asian art was recently released on YouTube and is also slated for publication; Yulia Sorokina, who has written a dissertation on contemporary art in Central Asia; or finally Dilda Ramazan who is writing her own doctoral dissertation and who runs her own Telegram channel on Central Asian art. I’ll add myself to the list, since I’m also writing a series of essays on contemporary Kazakhstani artists.
SS: Video art and short films are among the favorite forms of art for artists in the region. American art historian Rosalind Krauss long ago theorized the narcissistic foundations of neo-avantgardist video art, its tendency to act as a mirror whereby the artist’s concern for self-reflection supersedes everything else. Do you consider this a productive way to describe contemporary art in Kazakhstan or the region?
Erbossyn Meldibekov, Shu-Chu (video, 2007).
DK: In Central Asia, video art is a quick and convenient way for artists to connect with contemporary art. The brief history of video art in Central Asia offers examples of both successful and unsuccessful uses of this medium. We can say that video art serves as a marker of “modernity,” an entry ticket, like a password to the club. It’s a medium that doesn’t require transportation and that can be transported quickly.
Meldibekov for one produces high-quality art with this medium. In the early 2000s, he began creating videos with the character of a man in a Central Asian skullcap, the tubeteika, and over the years he has regularly added new scenes that feature this character. This “man in the tubeteika” is a personification of the artist himself. Some of these works (Pastan [2001], Shu-Chu [2007], Allergy [2009], Spit [2014], 118 Hours of Silence, or Kazakh Language Lessons [2022]) are organized very simply, consisting of a close-up of a bust-length self-portrait before a conventionally light background. In Pastan, the man with the skullcap is beaten and insulted; in subsequent videos, he performs very simple actions, such as laughing, sneezing, crying, spitting, or pronouncing certain letters.
All these films are focused on the external, repressive reality that gives birth to repressed subjects, including the submissive man in the skullcap himself who reflexively reacts to his native surroundings. Editing is minimal; almost all of the videos were shot in a single take, with no special lighting or gimmicks. In fact Meldibekov’s videos are as unlike cinema as it gets: plot and narrative are absent, the imagery is deliberately stereotypical, and the actions performed are generally absurd. These works bear all the hallmarks of narcissism in that the artist’s self-portrait literally appears to be sitting in front of a mirror, while for the artist as well as his viewers, they function like retroactive mirrors.
Rustam Khalfin, Love Races (video, 2000)
There are certainly examples of Central Asian video art that support Krauss’s theory, including Love Races (1999) by Rustam Khalfin, an underground abstract artist who lived and worked in Almaty during the Soviet era. Even during its production, this work was surrounded by legends about the impending birth of a masterpiece, thanks to Khalfin’s considerable authority and reputation. Love Races is straightforward and naturalistic. It focuses on the hyperbolic medieval Chinese myth that Central Asian nomads lived without ever getting off their horses. For this work, Khalfin hired sex workers and asked them to simulate sex on horseback. While some of the Central Asian artists discussed above engage in self-exoticization, in Khalfin’s case, this morphed into what we might refer to as hyper-self-exoticization, an extreme form of “narcissistic narcissism.” Conceptually, Love Races relates to the art of testing or endurance, and Khalfin was originally going to perform the stunt himself, together with a female partner. Had this happened, the work would have been no less self-exoticizing, but at least no ethical questions about the exploitation of sex workers would have come up.
SS: What are the specific reasons for the failure of Khalfin’s work, in your mind?
DK: I’ve already written elsewhere about this, but let me repeat some of my points here. First, some background. A student of Kazimir Malevich’s student Vladimir Sterligov, Khalfin in the 1970s and ‘80s continued the modernist tradition of the early 20th century, a fact he was very proud of. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, and with the arrival of information about contemporary art, Khalfin’s understanding of art changed, and he began experimenting with new ideas. However, the conflict between the modernist tradition in which he was so immersed and which in the late 20th century became a form of escapism, on the one hand, and contemporary art with its completely different strategy of immersion in reality, on the other, proved insurmountable for Khalfin. As a result, with Love Races,produced what was in essence a low-budget pornographic film that ironically turned out to be the most expensive work of video art in Central Asia at the time.
SS: Is there a lesson in this for contemporary artists in the region today?
DK: There’s a theory in psychology that narcissism is characteristic of puberty, adolescents, and young adults aged 14 to 18. Perhaps the narcissism of Central Asian video art is evidence of the youthfulness of Central Asian contemporary art more generally, suggesting that the best is yet to come?
The conversation was conducted over email on March 23, 2026.
Dastan Kozhakhmetov
Dastan Kozhakhmetov is an independent curator and art critic based in Almaty. In his curatorial and critical practice he explores controversial, contradictory, and conflictual themes in the history and contemporary context of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, a region that has experienced multiple and radical shifts in ideological narratives and paradigms in a short period of time. Between 2007 and 2009 Kozhakhmetov served as an exhibition project coordinator and executive director at the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Almaty.
