ARTMargins Online

Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries

Tagged: Uzbekistan

ARTMargins Online: Exhibition Reviews

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 by Vera Gailis ·

Recipes for Broken Hearts: The Bukhara Biennale as Heritage Spectacle and Critical Absence

Bukhara, Uzbekistan, September 5—November 20, 2025

The inaugural Bukhara Biennale, Recipes for Broken Hearts, enters the global art scene with immense ambition. Presented as the first large-scale contemporary art event in Uzbekistan and, more broadly, in Central Asia, it has been framed as a milestone in the region’s cultural visibility. Its location, among caravanserais, restored madrasas, and public squares of one of the oldest Silk Road cities, appears designed to merge heritage and futurity. Yet beneath this image of cultural arrival lies a complex interplay of state strategy, curatorial positioning, and political silence.

The guidebook lists close to two … Read more

A model of a wooden labyrinth, in a darkened room, with just the labyrinth light brightly. The wood used to create the labyrinth has been darkened by burning.

ARTMargins Online: Exhibition Reviews

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 by Nicolay Duque-Robayo ·

Unbuild Together: The Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale

Curated by Lesley Lokko, the 18th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennial is titled The Laboratory of the Future, and this concept serves as the underlying theme for the central exhibitions in the Giardini and Arsenale, as well as the national pavilions scattered through Venice’s six sestieri. Where the biennale at large provided a spotlight on Africa and the African Diaspora, each of the national pavilions individually returned to the language of “the experiment” to consider possible futures. Often contrasting past and present, as in the case of the Uzbekistan pavilion, this language of experimentation and possibility similarly appeared … Read more