"Love me love me not" exhibition to back to roots
By Nigar Orujova
A contemporary art exhibition titled "Love Me, Love Me Not" will be opened to public in Baku on April 4.
The exhibition, which will be held at the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center until May 25, puts on display the recent works of 16 artists from Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Georgia. It is organized and supported by YARAT, a not-for-profit contemporary art organization based in Baku.
The exhibition debuted at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. Its launch in Baku will bring the exhibition back to the region that inspired it.
Contemporary art amateurs will be able to see the most recent works of promising Azerbaijani artists including Faig Ahmed, Rashad Alakbarov, Ali Hasanov, Rashad Babayev, Orkhan Huseynov, Sitara Ibrahimova, Aida Mahmudova, and Farid Rasulov, as well as other talented artists from Iran, Russia, and Georgia.
The exhibition offers a diverse range of media and subject matters with video, installation, and painting all on show. Pieces range from those steeped in historical reference to those with more site-specific responses and those, which are inspired by personal history.
"Each piece in this exhibition has a role to give the viewers at least one new perspective on the nations represented in this pavilion, with the mere intent to give a better understanding of the area that is being covered," explains Dina Nasser-Khadivi, an independent curator and consultant, specialist in Contemporary art from the Middle East, Iran and selected areas of the Caucasus.
"Showcasing works by these artists in a single exhibition aims to ultimately question how each of us perceive history and geography," she added.
By bringing artists from Azerbaijan and its surrounding region together in one exhibition, "Love Me, Love Me Not" will create new perspectives on the contemporary art of Azerbaijan, as well as that of Iran, Russia and Georgia.