Aida Mahmudova & Faig Ahmed
Exploring Inward Curated by Farah Piriyeva
27 January – 6 February Louise Blouin Foundation
2nd BUTA FESTIVAL OF AZERBAIJANI ARTS LONDON. NOV’14 – MAR’15
Foreword by Nasib Piriyev Founder of Buta Art Centre and Director of Buta Festival of Azerbaijani Arts
Five years after introducing London audiences to the cultural heritage of Azerbaijan, the Buta Festival of Azerbaijani Art is back. The 2014-15 festival seeks to explore the Azerbaijani soul, uncovering what makes this country so unique through its art. It's a journey back to the roots of a culture and a look at how those roots continue to grow vibrantly in the modern world. The past five years have seen huge changes in Azerbaijan, especially in the capital Baku. The city's landscape has been transformed by a series of landmark buildings and its cultural life has been hugely enhanced by some world-class exhibition and performance spaces. From the sinuous curves of Zaha Hadid's award-winning Heydar Aliyev Centre to the imposing Flame Towers, the ancient city is shaking off its humdrum post-Soviet environment. And that process is inspiring a burgeoning contemporary art scene, taking the country to big international festivals and inspiring the fresh new YARAT to create a platform for a confident young generation in a country that is reinventing itself anew. Indeed, reinvention is one of the underlying themes of this festival – traditional arts, from carpets to mugham, re-interpreted by a new generation of creative talents. Names like jazz pianist Isfar Sarabski as well as artists Aida Mahmudova and Faig Ahmed take on traditional forms and transform them. They follow in the pioneering footsteps of the likes of jazzman Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, composer and conductor Niyazi and artist Farkhad Khalilov, all of whom are represented in the festival. This time the Buta festival takes to the streets of London with a series of public art installations from seven of the brightest talents in contemporary Azerbaijani art. These works form the core of a quest; each work, displayed around London, reflects a facet of the national character and unlocks the answer to a riddle. I believe there is no better way of getting to know another culture than to explore its creative life. In the upcoming months the Buta Festival will show how Azerbaijan is changing – rapidly, before our very eyes – into a lively, contemporary nation which has deep respect for its proud traditions while forging an exciting new future. butafestival.com / 3
Introduction by Farah Piriyeva
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung 6 / Instroduction
Exploring Inward
A
ida Mahmudova and Faig Ahmed have been brought together for this show to explore the intersecting territory on which their body of art is built. When viewing their works independently, there don't appear to be commonalities in their concepts, either visual or theoretical. However, if you place their artworks side by side, an unframed seascape by Mahmudova and the gravitational carpet by Ahmed can radiate the same spirit, the same mood. That mood is of an explorer. Their work possesses the robust power inherent in any explorer, whether of distant lands, an astronomer investigating the universe, or a scientist searching for what lies within. There have always been those who explore inwards – for instance, miners in the earth's core, or the early twentieth-century psychologists who claimed that the deeper you investigate the unconscious, the closer you get to the truth. Looking inward will lead you to discover what lies beyond the surface. Aida Mahmudova and Faig Ahmed both explore inwards. This is what unites their work: the phenomenon of the explorer's curiosity, of one who travels in search of knowledge, who digs into the past to find a future. This constant journey present in their work brings them together, joined by the eternal question: 'What lies within?' Introduction / 7
Artists
Aida Mahmudova & Faig Ahmed
Artists / 9
Aida Mahmudova
A
ida Mahmudova's body of work is aimed at retrieving the memories of her motherland and shows the eternal richness of the modest neighbourhoods of the Absheron Peninsula in Azerbaijan, the countryside of her childhood. It depicts the intensity of a lucid dream of remembering, almost a hallucination. “My art is a constant and continued investigation of my memory, as it informs my identity�, says the artist. Her artwork resembles the landscape of the unconscious mind, demonstrating a chaotic combination of those vague images of one's past, a chronicle of memories locked away, the flashbacks that haunt us all. A 17-metre-long unframed canvas, entitled 'On the Way Home, by the Sea', the largest artwork created by Mahmudova, depicts the Caspian Sea and its shores, as she remembers it. This monumental piece shows the artist's longing for her memory of the sea, the feelings it awoke back then while looking at it, rather than just the sea itself. The image of the sea was an integral part of her childhood, passing along its shores on her daily journey home. The Absheron Peninsula is surrounded by the waves of the Caspian Sea, and throughout history Azerbaijani artists have always been influenced by its magical and mysterious views. These views, sometimes restless, sometimes calming, left an indelible impression on Mahmudova as a little girl. She remembers the sea as it appeared to her then, powerful and awe-inspiring in its enormity. 10 /
The vulnerability of the emotionally painted seascape, accomplished through a dreamlike soft colour scheme and expressive application of acrylic paint executed with a bold impasto, shows the sensitive and delicate nature of the artist herself. By exploring and investigating her memories, Mahmudova unveils her deepest recollections creating a work that resembles the mysterious and irrational workings of the unconscious mind. The work's overwhelming entity only emphasises that surreal and silent space, which has no angles or landmarks, just like Mahmudova's painting, which leads one to experience a sense of disorientation first and then hits you with a wave of nostalgia. Her monumental work is more than just a pictorial representation of the sea. Somehow, the process of watching this massive landscape is a mirror experiment, where one experiences looking at the reflection of one's own memories.
Artists / Aida Mahmudova / 11
Artists / Aida Mahmudova / 13
Artists / Aida Mahmudova / 15
Faig Ahmed
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orking with ancient carpets, Faig Ahmed constantly uncovers their timeless symbolism, those ceaseless patterns containing deep spiritual signs and symbols that he tries to decipher. His work resembles that naive inquisitiveness of a child that wishes to break down anything that comes its way, in order to find out what it is made of. The artist strongly believes that by decoding those messages, one will be led to uncover the essence of infinity, endlessly looking for the exit that will bring you to nothing but the inception. Just like Mahmudova, Ahmed is showing another type of cyclical journey, not the inner one but the macrocosmic, within which mankind exists. At some point in his career, Ahmed started questioning and wondering about eternity, genetics, and the inevitability of existentialism. Aimed at breaking down and even refusing the solid canons and ancient traditions, experimenting with incorporating Azerbaijani rug-making into abstract shapes, creating fusion pieces by redefining the boundaries between folk and contemporary art, Ahmed suddenly faced something irreversible, from which he has no way out. His work for the 'Exploring Inward' exhibition is dedicated to the latest research he has been doing, inspired by these considerations, holding that constant interflow with infinity. Indeed, Ahmed's kaleidoscope of bright and conceptual rugs carries an exuberant Op Art sensibility: the structural tension and bold 16 /
perspective achieved by integrating tumourshaped errors and elements of chiaroscuro drag the viewer somewhere beyond the surface. Those deflections growing within the monochrome rhythms of the carpet frames resemble the slow motion ripples of an atomic bomb, not exploding but imploding. Many understand Ahmed's work and the processes he captures as external. However, those alienated forms and shapes that he incorporates into the rug-weaving process can be perceived from another angle, by considering them as processes of internal character. By internally growing and decoding that ancient representation of tradition, Ahmed brings it to another level, a 4-D format, just like his monumental installation 'Gravitation'. What will the carpet look like once what fundamentally belongs to it is taken away, like a mechanical device lacking a power source? A massive carpet that looks absolutely static, and yet radiates some sort of dynamism from within, has been disassembled by the artist-decipherer and resembles a silent motionless sculpture hanging in the gravitational space.
Artists / Faig Ahmed / 17
Faig Ahmed
Threads Installation
DISCONNECTION Size variable Edition 1/1 150 x 350 cm Date: 2014 18 /
Artists / Faig Ahmed / 19
Faig Ahmed
Carpet
UNTITLED Size variable Edition 1/1 150 x 240 cm Date: 2014 20 /
Carpet
UNTITLED Size variable Edition 1/1 150 x 200 cm Date: 2014 Artists / Faig Ahmed / 21
Faig Ahmed
Carpet
GARA Handmade woolen Edition 2/3 200 x 150 cm Date: 2014 22 /
Carpet
INVERT Handmade woolen Edition 2/3 200 x 150 cm Date: 2014 Artists / Faig Ahmed / 23
Faig Ahmed
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Installation
GRAVITATION-ANTI GRAVITATION Woolen carpets (2 pieces) Edition 1/1 200 x 250 x 350 cm Date: 2014 Artists / Faig Ahmed / 25
Faig Ahmed
Artists / Faig Ahmed / 27
About Artists
Aida Mahmudova & Faig Ahmed
About Artists / 29
About Artists Aida Mahmudova B. 1982, Baku, Azerbaijan Lives and works in Baku and London
Aida Mahmudova is an Azerbaijani artist and the Founding Director of YARAT, a not-for-profit contemporary art organisation, based in Baku. Her work addresses memory and nostalgia. Drawing inspiration from the landscape and architecture of Azerbaijan, Mahmudova works in installation, sculpture and painting, aiming to capture forgotten and marginal corners of her rapidly modernising country. The core of Mahmudova's work involves repurposed abandoned architectural features, formed into installations, as well as paintings of empty sites on the outskirts of Baku. Seeking to commemorate a moment in time through these subjects, her works act to counter the on-going experience of transience, yet they simultaneously celebrate items that are themselves on the cusp of disappearing. As such, Mahmudova preserves the sense of ephemerality that permeates a country already layered with past civilisations. Key to Mahmudova's work is the tension between fiction and reality, and a fascination with memory and identity's impermanence. To Mahmudova, identity is formed by memory, which is continually altered and 're-remembered' over time. The landscapes and architectural relics externalise this sense of change and reflect underlying tensions experienced by the generation who experienced Azerbaijan's independence in 1991. She graduated from Central Saint Martin's in London with a degree in Fine Art in 2006. To date, her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the MAXXI in Rome and the 55th Venice Biennale for the exhibition 'Love Me, Love Me Not' (which later travelled to the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, designed by Zaha Hadid) amongst others. Her work was also the subject of a solo exhibition at the Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich. In 2011, Aida Mahmudova founded YARAT, a notfor-profit contemporary art organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan. YARAT is dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan, and creating a platform for Azerbaijani art both nationally and internationally. The organisation also produces a comprehensive programme of exhibitions and education. In 2012 she launched YAY Gallery, a social enterprise that shares proceeds between 30 /
exhibiting artists and YARAT's projects. Mahmudova was appointed Curatorial Director of Baku Museum of Modern Art in 2013 to oversee their exhibition programme. Solo exhibitions: 2013 'Internal Peace', Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland 'Internal Peace', Kichik GalArt Gallery, Baku, Azerbaijan Group Exhibitions: 2014 'Here Today…', international art exhibition, The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Baku Magazine, The Old Sorting Office, London, UK 'Poetics of the Ordinary', ViennaFair, The New Contemporary, Vienna, Austria 'Love me, love me not', Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan and its Neighbours, Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan 2013 'Love me, love me not', Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan and its Neighbours, Collateral Event for the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy 2012-2013 'Fly to Baku', Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan: Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan; Kunsthistorisches Museum – Neue Burg, Vienna, Austria; Spazio D – Maxxi Building National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome, Italy; Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia; me Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany; Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, Paris, France; Phillips de Pury & Company, London, UK 'Home Sweet Home', Azerbaijan Cultural Center, Paris, France; Baku Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Baku, Azerbaijan 2012 '012 Baku Public Art Festival', Baku, Azerbaijan 'Merging Bridages', Museum of Modern Art, Baku, Azerbaijan 2011 'Foreword', Alternative Art Space of YARAT, Baku, Azerbaijan
About Artists Faig Ahmed B. 1982, Sumgait, Azerbaijan Lives and works in Baku
Faig Ahmed graduated from the Sculpture Faculty of the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Art in Baku in 2004. Since 2003 he has been working with various media, including painting, video and installation. He is currently studying the artistic qualities of traditional Azerbaijani rugs – he disassembles their conventional structure, randomly rearranges the resulting components and then combines these fragments with contemporary sculptural forms. He thinks that our opinions and decisions result from the influences of our childhood. If we could know all the details of someone's life we could easily predict their reactions and choices. Tradition is the main factor that creates society as a self-regulated system. Changes in unwritten rules happen under the influence of global modern culture. The carpet is a symbol of the invincible traditions of the East, a visualization of an indestructible icon. But in his art he sees culture differently. It is more about the expectation of a reaction because it is precisely this change in points of view that changes the world. Slight alterations in the form of a carpet dramatically change its structure and maybe make it more suitable for modern life. Eastern culture is visually very rich. Ahmed covers it all in minimalistic forms, destroying the stereotypes of the tradition and redrawing new modern boundaries. People can widen borders and change them but no one has ever dared to break the local spirit. Solo exhibitions 2014 'Fluid Forms', Cuadro Gallery, Dubai, UAE 2012 'East in Twist', Leila Heller Gallery, New York, USA 'Actual Tradition', Kicik QalArt Gallery, Baku, Azerbaijan 'Actual Tradition', Islamic Art Festival, Sharjah, UAE 32 /
Group exhibitions 2014 'Exhibit 320', Cuadro Gallery, Exhibition of artist in residency, Dubai UAE 'Past Tradition', Exhibit 320 Gallery, curated by Diana Campbell, Delhi, India 'Love Me, Love me Not', Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center, Baku, Azerbaijan 'Treads', Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, Holland 'Crossroads 2', Sotheby's, London, United Kingdom 2013 'Love Me, Love Me Not', Yarat Contemporary Art Space Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Italy 'Wonder Works', Cat Street Gallery, Honk Kong, China 'At The Crossroads', Sotheby's Auction House, London, United Kingdom 'Home Sweet Home', Azerbaijan Cultural Center, Paris, France 'Fly to Baku. Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan', Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia 'Fly to Baku. Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan', Maxxi Museum, Rome, Italy 2012 'Next Level', YAY Contemporary Art Gallery, Baku, Azerbaijan 'Commonist', Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan 'Fly to Baku. Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan', Berlin, Germany 'Merging Bridges', Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan 'Public Art Festival', Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan 'Fly to Baku. Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan', Paris, France 'Fly to Baku. Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan', Phillips de Pury & Company, London, United Kingdom 2011 'On Soz', Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku 'Fabulous Four', Kicik QalArt Gallery, Baku 2008 'Steps of Time', Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden, Germany 2007 'Aluminum 3', International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Baku, Azerbaijan 52nd Venice Biennale, Azerbaijan Pavilion, Venice, Italy 2006 'Caucasus', National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
About Artists / 33
“Understand 'Exploring Inward' as an experiment, just as Faig Ahmed experiments in his works; and expect it to be spacious, just like Aida Mahmudova's sea of memories, her perception of inner landscape and its connection with the outer world...� Farah Piriyeva
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Credits & Copyrights
Pages 4 - 5.
Pages 22.
Working process. Aida Mahmudova, “On the way home to the sea”, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 400 x 1700 cm. Photography by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku,
Faig Ahmed. Carpet ‘Gara’, 2014, Handmade woolen, edition 2/3, 200 x 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan)
Pages 10 - 11. Working process. Aida Mahmudova, “On the way home to the sea”, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 400 x 1700 cm. Photography by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 12 - 13. Working process. Aida Mahmudova, “On the way home to the sea”, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 400 x 1700 cm. Photography by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 14 - 15. Aida Mahmudova, Detail from “On the way home to the sea”, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 400 x 1700 cm. Photography by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 16 - 17. Working process. Faig Ahmed. Threads Installation ‘Disconnection’. 2014. Edition 1/1. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 18 - 19. Faig Ahmed. Threads Installation ‘Disconnection’. 2014, 3D view of installation. edition 1/1. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Page 20. Faig Ahmed. Carpet ‘Untitled’, 2014, 150 x 240 cm, edition 1/1. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 21. Faig Ahmed. Carpet ‘Untitled’, 2014, 150 x 200 cm, edition 1/1. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) 36 /
Pages 23. Faig Ahmed. Carpet ‘Invert, 2014, Handmade woolen, edition 2/3, 200 x 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 24 - 25. Faig Ahmed. Installation ‘Gravitation-anti gravitation’. 2014, 3D view of installation. edition 1/1. (2 pieces). 200 x 250 x 350 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 26 - 27. Working process. Faig Ahmed. Installation ‘Gravitation-anti gravitation’. 2014. Edition 1/1. (2 pieces). 200 x 250 x 350 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 30 - 31. Working process. Aida Mahmudova, “On the way home to the sea”, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 400 x 1700 cm. Photography by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 32 - 33. Working process. Faig Ahmed and his assistants. Threads Installation ‘Disconnection’. 2014. Edition 1/1. Photo by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy of the artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 34 - 35. Detail from Aida Mahmudova’s work “On the way home to the sea”. 2014, mixed technique on canvas. Photography by Rauf Askerov. Courtesy by artist and Yay Gallery (Baku, Azerbaijan) Pages 38 - 39 Detail from Faig Ahmed’s threads installation “Disconnection”. 2014
Acknowledgements
This project has taken place thanks to the energy and commitment of an incredible team. Support has come from Baku to London. This exhibition could have not happened without the following individuals and organisations WE WISH TO THANK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM Nasib Piriyev, founder of Buta Art Centre and Director of Buta Festival of Azerbaijani Art, Buta Festival team, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Aida Mahmudova, Faig Ahmed, Anastasiya Blokhina, YAY Gallery
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PUBLISHED IN 2015 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 2ND BUTA FESTIVAL OF AZERBAIJANI ARTS LONDON. NOV’14 – MAR’15
BUTAFESTIVAL.COM
EXHIBITION Curator: Farah Piriyeva Produced by: Buta Festival Support: YARAT, YAY Gallery CATALOGUE Design © Fakhriyya Mammadova Images © Rauf Askerov; artists Text © Farah Piriyeva; Buta Festival For the book in this form © Buta Festival Printed in ‘CHASHIOGLU’ Printing House, Baku, Azerbaijan. 500 pieces All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the rights holder. All efforts have been made to trace copyright holders. Any errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent Editions if notice is given in writing to the rights holder.