Central Asia is a vibrant geographical area where many cultural identities and historical narratives intersect. On the one hand, there is a strong and lasting presence of nomadic heritage from the Saka tribes, which inhabited parts of Central Asia in about 170 BC. Then there is the enduring story of the Silk Road, which spans from the modern territory of Europe, through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and all the way to Far East China. This route became one of the first trading ecosystems that fostered the exchange of goods and ideas.

ASTANA – The Life is a Legend exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCS) in Strasbourg is bringing the work of contemporary Kazakh artists to an international audience. The exhibition, which opened on Dec. 5, is presented by the Eurasian Cultural Alliance and the Apollonia Association and will showcase artists largely unknown outside of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan's contemporary artists have been struggling over the last few years. Feminist art and activism in particular has come under heavy attack. But despite the challenges which lie ahead, the country's creatives are looking to the future: after all, it's in difficult times in which they feel needed most of all.

Bishkek's Feminnale kicked off a fight against the patriarchy. But with government censorship, the struggle is proving even more difficult than artists predicted.

The Lahore Biennale 02 (LB02) kicked off at Huzuri Bagh Lahore Fort on January 26, 2020 under the title "Between the Sun and the Moon" with some prominent painters from Kazakhstan namely Ms. Almagul Menlibayeva, Ms. Zitta Sultanbayeva, Ms. Saule Suleimenova, Mr. Syrlybek Bekbotayev and Mr. Roman Zakharov being part of it.

As Kazakhstan heads for its first presidential election without long-time leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, a group of creative youth activists has shattered the appearance of stability in the country with several actions demanding that freedom of political choice be ensured and the Constitution be respected.

While support for the activists is undoubtedly strong, their actions are not unique: the modern history of Kazakhstan has seen many remarkable protests that employed art and creativity to send a message, argue political activist Galym Ageleuov and art critic Zitta Sultanbayeva.

Voices on Central Asia, MAY 14, 2019

To get an idea about the Kazakhstan contemporary art scene we asked eight competent people of art for some insights. Dina Baitassova, founder of IADA International Art Development Association, Galina Koretskaya, specialist on questions of development and cultural policy in Almaty Mayor's Office Department of Culture, artists Galim Madanov, Zauresh Terekbay, and Almagul Menlibayaeva, independent curator and artist Gaisha Madanova, Igor Sludskiy, head of the public association "Eurasian Cultural Alliance" and organizer of the contemporary art festival ArtBatFest in Almaty, and the young filmmaker Malik Zenger talk about the artists to follow and what is happening in contemporary culture in Kazakhstan.

#VIENNACONTEMPORARY, 20. May 2014

A saddle. A brand. A blade. A hand. Tools that work, tools that move, tools that tell a story. Each is familiar, but eerily distant, speaking of violence, displacement and an understated timeline of events. They are the instruments of a "Eurasian Utopia", multifarious in their attempts to narrate or work through chaotic, nomadic histories.

Art Radar, November 26, 2018

an unprecedented exhibition of Kazakhstan's most celebrated art collective, Kyzyl Tractor

This blog is about a very unusual family of a modern Kazakh artist, writer and journalist, Zitta Sultanbayeva, who is the soul and inspiration behind the creative works by ZITABL & AURA.

Zitta Sultanbayeva is an artist, poet, journalist and art critic; a very talented person who has the ability to process and respond to life's events in her own philosophical and imaginative way. I came across Zitta's work via Facebook. Zitta's posts caught my attention with her insightful excurses into Kazakhstan's art and culture.

1. First of all understand your own motives. Do you want something to decorate your room, or match the curtains? Or are you want to make investment and looking for possibility of a capital increase? Or are you attracted to art as a passionate collector?

2. Be aware that each of the above driving force is related - and each requires a different strategy. If you are looking for something you like, then it's easy: go with your intuition.

Art can be a powerful means of interpreting situations. A workshop over five days in which professional artists assist lay participants to produce their own art. And in the course of doing so, they engage with pressing existential and social questions. They experience the self-empowerment of exhibition, they learn from each other's artistic journeys, they practice offering and receiving critical appreciation of ideas.

ASTANA – To counter what some believe to be an underrepresentation of Kazakh art internationally, the International Art Development Association (IADA) created an "Invisible Pavilion" entitled "Protagonists" on the sidelines of the May 1-10 Venice Biennale, where Kazakh and Central Asian artists were able to exhibit their work and their culture.

EUROPE ENDS HERE. The Tian-Shan mountains loom on the horizon. Kyrgyzstan lies beyond. China is less than 200 miles away. Almaty. South-east Kazakhstan. The country's largest city (1.4 million) and former capital (1929-97). Built to a grid-pattern with sloping, leafy avenues. Lined not with apple-trees, after which the city (ex-Alma-Ata) is named, but mainly oaks.

Almost everywhere – the exception is Abay Square, which looks like a miniature Tianmen – Almaty feels Russian not Asian, sprinkled with Tsarist wooden architecture and Constructivist buildings and awash with Stalinist Neo-Classicism, led by the magnificent Opera house (left), opened in 1941 and sumptuously restored in 2002.

ASTANA – The creations of Kazakh artists are being presented abroad through the Focus Kazakhstan project, initiated to support working artists. The project sets up artist residences for eight young painters and photographers in countries around the world and follows them with parallel exhibitions.

The first artist residence for Kazakh artists launched in Berlin in June under the guidance of international curators. The project will run until Oct. 20, 2018, with residences in addition to Berlin in London, New York and Suwon, South Korea.

The Astana Times, 26 JULY 2018

A Report consequent on research conducted during travel across Central Asia – August-October 2017.

"My recent journey across Central Asia was undertaken, at least in part, to research the proposition that artists can and should play a role in the continuing development of the Central Asian Republics post-Independence, ie, since 1992. I took as my subject the republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, with some reference to China where my journey began. I had the opportunity to interview 20 artists and arts-related professionals, and I have audio recordings of 16 of these encounters".

In the early 21st century the artists we now call the pioneers of Kazakhstani contemporary art, namely Shai-Zia, Sergei Maslov, Rustam Khalfin, and Moldakul Narymbetov, went on to the next world, one following the other. Those heart attacks and strokes are a sequence of that great tension they suffered in creating this new art under pressure, rejection and bullying. The audience in Europe loved them, especially Moldakul, who was an exotic thing for them wearing his dressing gown and unusual hat, and with the dombra in his hands. He was free and easy, he could find common ground with anybody without speaking any foreign language, he was able to fit seamlessly into an art sparkling atmosphere in Berlin, in smug Geneve museums, in Vienne squares, where he was beating his drums and played saz syrnai...

So Kyzyl Tractor is an art group from Shymkent (South Kazakhstan). The group was founded in 1990. They have been known for over a decade with numerous events in Kazakhstan and overseas and became one of the leaders of contemporary art in Central Asia. According to the website of Fonkor Gallery that used to be the office of Kyzyl Tractor in Shymkent: «All they had done made the history of Kazakhstani contemporary art»; and there is no exaggeration in this declaration.

In locales where the resources are scarce and the imperial-colonial configurations more complicated than in the West-East or North-South dichotomies, the politics of physical survival and the politics of servility towards the criminal state unfortunately dominate. There are no recipes against this, other than delinking and disobeying. And most of decolonial artists in this situation and in such spaces are confined to the position of subversive tricksters and negotiators, creating, little by little, a decolonial transmodern "community of sense," to paraphrase J. Ranciere, 2009.

In a bid for a more distinctive international profile, Kazakhstan is hosting Expo 2017 through September 10. The arts-and-industry event is sited on the outskirts of Astana, surrounded by ongoing construction projects, reminding visitors that the city is still in active development. Designated the national capital in 1997, six years after Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union, Astana is the country's second largest city; Almaty, the former capital, remains the preeminent metropolis and cultural heart. The first such global extravaganza to be held in a post-Soviet nation, Expo 2017 reportedly cost between $1.3 billion and $5 billion...

No matter how hard i try to keep in touch with what is going on in Turin, i always seem to do an awful job. Latest openings in London, Berlin, Eindhoven, San Diego or Venice? Easy peasy. But Turin does its best to keep me bored and uninformed. I discovered only a few days ago, as i was taking the plane to Graz (did you know Arnold Schwarzenegger comes from there?), that here was a fantastic exhibition in town. It had opened in May and i managed to visit it yesterday morning, a few hours after being back from Austria.

Artworks from Central Asian artists hailing from nations that were formerly Soviet republics, including Kazahkstan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, are on display in an inaugural event launching the new space of Fondazione 107, in Turin, Italy.

Alexandra Tsay is an independent research fellow in cultural studies and an art curator based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She is involved in PaperLab: Public Policy Research Laboratory and Open Mind. Previously, she worked as a Senior Lecturer at International Information Technologies University in Almaty. Alexandra is an alumna of University of Warwick (UK), where she earned an MA in International Cultural Policy and Management, and KIMEP University (Kazakhstan), where she earned a BA in International Journalism and Mass Communication. She was a research fellow at Public Policy Initiative Program of Soros Foundation Kazakhstan in 2014-2015. During her fellowship, Alexandra will explore the cultural public sphere in Kazakhstan. Her hypothesis is that the cultural public sphere and artistic expressions are becoming an important arena for public debates, criticism and inventions of counter-discourses in societies with restricted freedom of the press and a shrinking political public sphere.

ASTANA – Kazakh contemporary artist Suinbike Suleimenova presents a documentary about artist Lidia Blinova as a part of Focus Kazakhstan project that lasts Oct. 2018 – March 2019. For her, the film is an achievement of art activism that contributed to the revival of Kazakh contemporary art history and women artists' representation.