Art exhibition on gender issues opens in Baku
By Nigar Orujova
The "Stalemate" exhibition on gender relations issues featuring young artists' works opened in Baku on Monday at the YAY! gallery of Yarat! Contemporary Art Space, an organization promoting Azerbaijani contemporary art locally and worldwide.
Heydar Aliyev Foundation Vice President Leyla Aliyeva, principal of the Baku branch of Moscow State University, Nargiz Pashayeva, and Yarat! founder Aida Makhmudova attended the opening ceremony.
Makhmudova recalled that this project of the Yarat! Contemprorary Art Space was successfully presented at the Moscow Mars gallery as part of the third Moscow International Biennale for Young Art this summer.
"A young Afghan male artist and three young Azerbaijani female artists, who have tried to show dialog and relations between genders, are taking part in the project," Makhmudova said.
Afghan artist Reza comes from an Islamic country to secular Azerbaijan and needs to adapt. Reza's art has strong patriarchal character as he uses old-fashioned materials - pencil and paper. There is a struggle in his soul between East/South and West/North, unlike his girl colleagues.
On the contrary, the girls were born into a secular environment. Their works demonstrate a self-sufficient worldview and wide horizons. Moreover, their choices of media for realizing their projects - sculptural installations and video - are more sophisticated.
The very collision of two worldviews and gender positions within one group promises a curious outcome. It is still under a question mark whose vision will prove itself to be more original and relevant to the audience - the specifically male traditional optics, refracting contemporary light onto its uncompromising look, or the female view of the problem, eroding the patriarchal "phallocentricity".
The exhibition runs until February 16.
The first Azerbaijani contemporary art gallery, YAY! Gallery, opened its doors on October 10 in Icherisheher (Old City), a historic architectural monument in the center of the capital Baku.
The YAY! Gallery, like YARAT! Art Space, pursues the purpose of presenting contemporary Azerbaijani art entirely and in an interesting way as well as putting the exhibition participants next to trendy names in world art.
Founded in 2011, YARAT! aims to promote dialogue and exchanges with non-commercial art foundations both in Azerbaijan and abroad.