Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- In April 2024, the opening of the exhibition project “Uzbekistan: Vanguard in the Desert” will take place.

The exhibition “Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert” will present to the Italian and international public an important, albeit little-known chapter in the history of art of the first half of the 20th century. 

It includes two sections that will be held at two venues: “Form and Symbol” in the exhibition space of the University of Ca Foscari, Venice and “Light and Color” in the Pitti Palace, Florence. 

The project was created with the support of the Art and Culture Development Foundation of Uzbekistan, and was curated by Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri from the Center for the Study of Russian Art at the University of Ca Foscari (CSAR). The exhibitions will feature more than 172 paintings and drawings created in the first half of the 20th century, as well as objects of national decorative and applied art from the collections of the State Museum of Arts of Karakalpakstan named after Igor Savitsky and the State Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan.

This is the first project of this level, highlighting the connection between two of the most significant museum collections of 20th century art in Uzbekistan. Visitors will discover a path to a deep understanding and appreciation of this period. Until now, modernist artists working in Central Asia were considered only as peripheral representatives of the Russian avant-garde; as followers of its leaders: Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Pavel Filonov and other world-famous masters.

The international public will see for the first time the works of Alexander Volkov, Nikolai Karakhan, Nadezhda Kashina, Elena Korovay, Mikhail Kurzin, Viktor Ufimtsev, Ural Tansykbaev, Usto Mumin (Alexander Nikolaev), whose work the exhibition curators call “avant-garde orientalis”. Also, for the first time, a visual comparison will be made of works of the Russian avant-garde and the “oriental” avant-garde” from the museum collections of the State Museum of Uzbekistan, Tashkent and the State Museum of Art named after Igor Savitsky, Nukus, which will demonstrate the result of the fruitful interaction of artists who worked in the region at the beginning of the century and the influence on them of modern trends of European painting, mastered through the prism of the artistic and cultural environment at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

"Light and Color"

The Florence section of the exhibition project “Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert” is called “Light and Color” and focuses on the image of Central Asia in the art of the first half of the 20th century, starting with Russian Orientalists who worked in Turkestan before 1917, and ending with representatives of the national school of painting, which was formed in Uzbekistan as a result of intercultural dialogue and exchange.

During the dramatic historical processes of the first half of the 20th century, Uzbekistan became a place of life and work, as well as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists of different nationalities and creative views. The change in artistic paradigms in the region generally corresponded to the periodization of Soviet art. The so-called Turkestan avant-garde (instead of which the curators of the exhibition propose the broader and inclusive term Avanguardia Orientalis), which replaced Orientalism, gradually and forcedly gave way to painting that meets the ideological guidelines of socialist realism. However, the pictorial culture of “light and color”, necessary for the perception and communication of local nature, architecture and everyday life, was developed and enriched through various concepts in art.

The exhibition Light and Color features paintings that demonstrate different approaches to these themes. The main attention is paid to the generation of artists of Avanguardia Orientalis: Alexander Volkov, Nikolai Karakhan, Nadezhda Kashina, Elena Korovay, Mikhail Kurzin, Ural Tansykbaev, Oganes Tatevosyan, Usto Mumin (Alexander Nikolaev), Viktor Ufimtsev.

In their works, the techniques of modernist painting enter into an interesting dialogue with the traditions of Central Asian folk art and the natural color of Uzbekistan.

"Form and Symbol"

The Venetian section of the project is called “Form and Symbol.” Speaking of form, the curators focus on the impact on Central Asian painting of the avant-garde collection sent to the Tashkent Museum of Art in 1921 by the Moscow Museum Bureau of the Fine Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat of Education. The cultural community, and first of all the artists of Turkestan, had the opportunity to see the works of Kandinsky, Kliun, Rodchenko, Popova, Rozanova, Ekster - avant-garde artists who were among the first to make the transition to non-objective art and influenced the formation of abstract art as a worldwide movement in the art of the 20th century.

The exhibition will also feature some of the best works by "avant-garde orientalis" artists. The curators reveal the expressive evolution of this artistic movement. Supplemented with objects of national decorative and applied art, the exhibition space will convey the depth of cultural and historical heritage and demonstrate intercultural dialogue between artists from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Armenia, most of whom received their education outside of Uzbekistan, but found their inspiration in Central Asia.

The project “Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert” provides an opportunity for the international public to get acquainted with the figure of Igor Savitsky and his contribution, which was influential in preserving and transmitting the artistic heritage to future generations.

An archaeologist by training, an artist and an obsessive collector, since the late 1950s Savitsky has collected thousands of archaeological finds and objects of decorative and applied art from Karakalpakstan, placing them next to thousands of works of painting and graphics from Uzbekistan and the Soviet Union in the concept of a “synthetic museum.” Igor Savitsky regularly visited Moscow in search of works of art from artists’ studios, acquiring them from widows and heirs, paying great attention to works of the avant-garde of the early 20th century, but keeping at the center of his interests the works of artists who lived and worked in Uzbekistan, where he himself visited evacuated during the Second World War.

Thus, Savitsky managed to assemble and preserve one of the largest collections of avant-garde works with a completely unique focus on the work of artists from Central Asia.

In addition to the works collected by Savitsky, the exhibition will feature archival photographs and a multimedia installation.

The “Light and Color” section of the exhibition “Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert” will be open in Florence at Palazzo Pitti from 15 April to 29 July  2024.

“Form and Symbol” will be open from 17 April to 29 September 2024 in the exhibition space of the Ca Foscari University in Venice.