THE UNION OF FIRE AND WATER, COLLATERAL EVENT OF THE 56TH VENICE BIENNALE

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The Union of fire and water

09.05 — 22.11.2015

commissioned by

Palazzo BarbarO Curated by Suad Garayeva

Rashad Alakbarov Almagul Menlibayeva

Contents

5 Foreword Aida Mahmudova 13 Recapturing Space — The Union of Fire and Water Suad Garayeva 52 Excerpt from Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 43

Palazzo Barbaro

100 The Ode of the Master, from Leyli and Majnun Fuzûlî 87 Giosafat Barbaro at The Court of Shah Uzun Hassan Lala Kazimova 124 Excerpt from The Grand Canal Henry James 115 Palazzo Barbaro Reborn — The Legacy of its Fin

De Siécle Salon Ermanno Rivetti 152 Excerpt from Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 147 Oil Boom Baku and the Palace of Happiness Fuad Akhundov 184 Excerpt from Water and Dreams: An Essay on the

Imagination of Matter Gaston Bachelard 190 Majnun's Prayer, from Leyli and Majnun Fuzûlî 179 And the Oil Burns Kasia Redzisz in Conversation

with Almagul Menlibayeva 274 Leyli's Letter, from Leyli and Majnun Fuzûlî

276 Excerpt from Travels to Tana and Persia Giosafat Barbaro 267 Smoke and Mirrors Sara Raza in Conversation

with Rashad Alakbarov 328 Ghazal Shah Ismail Hatai 330 Excerpt from Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 337 Acquiring 'Living Space' Francesco Bonami 342 Excerpt from Faust Part II Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 307

Artist Biographies

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Contributors

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About Yarat

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List of Works

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Bibliography

Foreword Aida MAHMUDOVA

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The historical links between Baku and Venice are myriad. As ancient ports, both cities have a long and significant history as vital trading centres. Both have been shaped by complex and rich cultural exchange across the generations.

The Union of Fire and Water is YARAT’s second official collateral project at the Venice Biennale of Art. It presents the opportunity to explore in depth these connections through the work of Rashad Alakbarov and Almagul Menlibayeva, two artists who originate from the Caucases and Central Asia respectively and who have each responded to the commission, to the context 19

of Venice and the history of the Palazzo Barbaro with a spirit of open creativity under the guidance of our curator Suad Garayeva.

At YARAT it is our longstanding goal to nurture an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to introduce the work of Azerbaijani artists to audiences both nationally and internationally.

As a non-profit organisation founded by artists, we work a great deal in our local community.

Venice is, for us, an invaluable opportunity to engage the global public and present artistic voices from Azerbaijan and the wider region.

While our international 20

projects, such as this Venice Biennale exhibition, enable us to commission artists within a global context, this year has been one of the key landmarks for YARAT on our home ground of Baku. The most significant of these has been the launch of our YARAT Contemporary Art Centre as a dedicated hub for contemporary art and art education in the region. We are delighted that the artists in The Union of Fire and Water will both present works in Baku during our first year of exhibitions at the Centre, enabling audiences who are unable to travel to Venice to experience their practice.

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This exhibition could not have taken place without the generous support, hard work and immense creativity of those involved.

Firstly, I thank the artists. As an artist-led organisation, YARAT lives by the energy and creativity that artists bring to each of our projects. I would also like to thank our sponsors for this project, Gilan Holdings. The dedication of everybody involved in the exhibition has been inspiring. From our curator to the contributors of this catalogue, the designers A Plus B, our press team, the invigilators, and not forgetting of course our team at YARAT, everyone’s contribution is 22

invaluable to the exhibition taking place. It gives me great pride to see how YARAT continues to develop along with the international interest in the artists from the region.

I hope you enjoy the exhibition and that this catalogue gives a useful and lasting insight into the works of Rashad Alakbarov and Almagul Menlibayeva, as well as the layered themes and references explored.

Thank you, Aida Founder and Creative Director of YARAT 23

Recapturing Space — The Union of Fire and Water SUAD garayeva

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‘What now matters most is not the production of new content but its retrieval in intelligible patterns through acts of reframing, capturing, reiterating, and documenting.’ David Joselit

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Paolo Veronese, 1528–1588, Portrait of Daniele Barbaro, 1556–1567. Courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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Introduction

The Union of Fire and Water presents a superimposition of two cities, Baku and Venice. As the 56th Venice Biennale attempts to establish All The World’s Futures, this exhibition looks at the world’s past, reviving forgotten connections from the labyrinth of history. Through a layered web of narratives, both historical and imagined, and a diverse pool of cultural, literary and symbolic references, from Alchemy, to Sufism and Zaraostrianism, the show is an exploration of the complex connection between Baku and Venice, as seen through the eyes of two artists, Almagul Menlibayeva and Rashad Alakbarov. Adding a phenomenological dimension, artist German Popov creates an immersive soundscape to complete the show.

Housed in the piano nobile of the magnificent Palazzo Barbaro, the newly commissioned works remain in constant dialogue with each other, feeding on information and associations evoked by each one of them. All remain closely linked to the venue throughout, making the whole exhibition a unique sitespecific installation.

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Peter Paul Rubens, 1577–1640 The Union of Earth and Fire, c. 1618 St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum. © 2015. Photo Scala, Florence

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Elements

Peter Paul Rubens’ famous canvas The Union of Earth and Fire is currently in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It depicts an exchange between a voluptuous female, symbolising Earth, and a virile male, symbolising Fire.

The suggested union is an image traditionally ingrained in the universal psyche as the procreator of all life. However, upon replacing the element of earth with that of water the direct malefemale dichotomy crumbles.

Water is more feminine than fire because of its liquid tactility and pleasant coolness. It can, however, also evoke violent associations and fear through the image of a storm, poetically called ‘the saliva of leviathan’ by Victor Hugo in his Toilers of the Sea1. Juxtaposed with water, fire itself can garner qualities of both danger and aggression, as well as those of comfort and home, the latter being more closely associated with the idea of a primal mother, governess of the hearth. Thus, the duality inherent in the elements gives way to ambiguity and offers them up for interpretation. The malleability of the two elements reflects the shifting nature of real life. When they come together, as the famous ‘philosopher of the senses’ Gaston Bachelard has it, the union forms a mixed material image of unusual power, creating a condition for all creation. 2

The elements of fire and water symbolise the cities of Baku and Venice respectively. It is, therefore, unsurprising that both cities have many faces. Baku, the city of burning mountains, capital of the Zaraostrian ‘land of fire’ and plentiful oil reserves, is also washed by the salty waters of the Caspian. A lilting presence, which relaxes the gaze and cools the temperament of its inhabitants. Venice, on the other hand, moves to the rhythm of water. It plays, eddies and dazzles, and one can hardly name a city more closely associated with the omnipresence of water.

Venice, though, is also the city of human passions. Of exquisite 34

blown glass chandeliers, of mirrored light, and, of course, of love.

Recalling Bachelard’s thought, ‘Love is but a fire that is to be transmitted. Fire is but a love whose secret is to be detected’.3

The artists Almagul Menlibayeva and Rashad Alakbarov both reference the elements of fire and water in their works.

Menlibayeva’s newly commissioned ten-channel video installation, Fire Talks To Me, transports the viewer into the streets of Baku and depicts the moving love story between the famous oil baron Murtuza Mukhtarov and his beautiful wife Lisa through scenes set on the shores of the Caspian, containing views from midsea exploration platforms. The dynamic tension in the work is a distillation of the two basic elements and stands as a commentary on power politics at the turn of both the 20 th and 21st centuries.

Alakbarov’s work is, at times, introspective. His historically informed installations hint at the importance of elements in the construction of one’s identity. His installation 2015 of bridges, Untitled (Omnes Viae Ducunt Venetias), occupies the whole area of a room and it forces the viewer to embark on a journey of their own, while evoking the artist’s failures and successes encountered on a challenging journey. One which has taken him, twice before, to Venice, during the 51st and 55th International Exhibitions of Art.

Another installation references the 9th century Venetian tradition of lighting fire to reflect from the mirrors inside its famous bell tower, turning St. Mark’s Campanile into a lighthouse for passing ships. Constructed of found and appropriated mirrors, the work raises questions of identity and presence in a space.

Responding to the splendor of its setting, using lightly cast shadow as a subtle medium, it acts as a reminder ‘I Was Here’.

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Almagul Menlibayeva and Rashad Alakbarov Installation still, The Union of Fire and Water, 2015 Š Almagul Menlibayeva Š Rashad Alakbarov

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Space and Origins

The complications of occupying a space, as well as those arising from the notion of occupying the space of the other, permeate the works in the show. Menlibayeva immerses her viewers into the spaces of Baku in the middle of Venice. This gesture plays on the similarities and distinctions between the two cities, with the aid of visual media. She explores the significance of architectural sensibilities in the creation of national identity. Alakbarov, by contrast, explores the semiotics of a historical location and how it affects the reading of a particular work placed within it.

Playing with the symbolic framework of the venue, he alternately complements or subverts it through his own interventions.

The venue in this case is especially prominent and significant.

The 14th century Gothic Palazzo, with its retrospectively added baroque extension, is a symbol of Venetian glory and opulence.

Built by the distinguished Venetian family, the Palazzo Barbaro has been home to a collection of the finest artistic and literary creations for centuries. Titian and Veronese both painted portraits of Daniele Barbaro, who, himself, was one of the first translators of Vitruvius, as well as being a prominent architect, cardinal and Patriarch of Aquileia. Commissioned in the 17th century by Alvise Barbaro, Palazzo’s famous stuccoed and gilded ballroom still houses beautiful frescoes, depicting famous historical women such as Zenobia and Artemisia by Antonio Zanchi among others.

The portegio, which boasts paintings dated to 1690 by Nicolo Bambini, such as Judah and Thamar and Agar and Ishmael, will be temporarily occupied by Rashad Alakbarov’s metal house of cards installation, conspicuously titled Precariousness of History.

The work depicts definitive moments of Venetian history, from the 6th century Kingdom of Ostrogoths, its conflict with the Byzantine Empire, through to the First Ottoman War. Highlighting the turbulent relationship between Venice and its Turkic counterparts, be it the Huns or the Ottomans, the work hints to one particularly 38

interesting case. The story of Giosafat Barbaro, a 15th century merchant, who spent many years travelling through the region of Tana, then occupied by Turkish speaking Tartars.

Due to his noble heritage, diplomatic prowess and command of Turkic language, Giosafat Barbaro was appointed as an ambassador of the Venetian Republic to the Persian Empire in 1474. He spent four years with the court of Shah Uzun Hassan.

Significantly, Uzun Hassan was the leader of the Turkic Ak Koyunlu dynasty and one of the most prominent Azeraijani historical figures. Maintaining a stronghold in Persia and the surrounding territories, Uzun Hassan established a period of Azeri-Turkic rule in the region, succeeded by Kara Koyunlu and shortly after by the famous Safavid dynasty. This rule existed until 1722, covering vast territories spanning from Turkey to Afghanistan.

Giosafat Barbaro not only travelled and lived in many Azerbaijani cities, but also extensively described them in his travelogue — The Travels to Tana and Persia. Completed in 1487, it offers a valuable description of the pavilions, activities and embellishments of the Ak Koyunlu court. Barbaro writes: ‘…There was no comparison to be made of our places unto his, both because his power far exceeded ours, and also for that we used no such chambers, and truly it was exceedingly fair’4 — a fine token to the precariousness of history and the power relations inherent within its spaces, the travelogue highlights the amicable relationship between the Venetian and the Azerbaijani.

The ambiguous Turkic-Italian relationship of conflict and prosperity is evident throughout the Palazzo. Not only through the fine Venetian-Gothic architecture, itself a symbiosis of medieval European and Oriental traditions, but also through its very own family crest. Legend has it, that the founder of the family name, Marco Barbaro, cut off the arm of a fallen Turk during battle and 39

used it to paint a red circle on a white flag to symbolise his victory.

Upon his return to Venice, Marco rectified this gruesome act.

Following Turkic tribal tradition of the time, he changed his name from Magadesi to Barbaro in homage to the courage of his fallen enemies whom he considered to be barbarians.

Opposite – The Barbaro Coat of Arms

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(Dis)Connections

Notions of conflict and kinship, love and violence run as subthemes throughout this exhibition. Four centuries after Giosafat Barbaro visited Baku, and mentioned it in passing in his work, a prominent Bakuvian visited Venice on his honeymoon.

Murtuza Mukhtarov was amongst the most successful oil magnates in early 20 th century Baku. He was known for his philanthropic gestures and his beloved wife Lisa was an icon of style and good taste. Upon their return from a trip to Venice, Mukhtarov erected a palace as a gift for Lisa. This architectural jewel was directly modelled on the very palazzo she had seen, and been beguiled by, in Venice.

In her multi-channel video installation, Almagul Menlibayeva explores the story of the love between Lisa and Murtuza, manifested in the magnanimous gift. Set against a backdrop of socio-political changes of the previous century, the work touches on the rising importance of oil as the source of power, since its discovery in late 19th century Baku. The changing cityscape of Baku, during what one might call the second oil boom at the turn of this century, is also referenced in the work. It is viewed, here, as a sign of a rising power from the East. For Menlibayeva, The Mukhtarov Palace itself symbolises the counterpart to its Venetian predecessor as the Old World powers decline to give way to emerging economies.

During the Soviet takeover of 1920, when the Red Army entered the palace on horseback, Mukhtarov killed himself, thereby clearing the way for Lisa to escape incarceration.

The future destiny of Lisa, who is said to have escaped via Istanbul to Europe, remains unknown. In the last room of the exhibition, Menlibayeva creates a stylized boudoir for the missing bride. Perhaps, it suggests, Lisa returned to her beloved Venice to end her days, like Milly Theale of Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove, who escaped her ailment within the walls of the fictional 42

Palazzo Leoporelli, itself imagined on the very Palazzo Barbaro.

The destiny of the Mukhtarov Palace developed independently from that of its commissioners, yet it curiously maintained the spirit of love that inspired its creation. Although such architectural form was a sharp contrast to the existing medieval Oriental cityscape of the early 1900s, as the years passed the building became an inextricable part of the local topography. Having passed through numerous hands since the Soviet confiscation, it now houses the main marriage registry of Baku and is commonly known as the Palace of Happiness.

In our age of seamless informational exchange, would a similar cultural superimposition create friction, or would it be absorbed and assimilated immediately as part of the local identity? What does it mean to occupy a space as loaded with historical and symbolic references as Palazzo Barbaro? How would the alchemically inspired symbolic decorations, such as a door relief of Hercules — guide of the souls, surrounded by phallic lions — symbols of Mercury, interact with the Islamic designs, such as shebeke, which can be glimpsed at a particular angle in one of Alakbarov’s installations? How would it feel to look out of one of the palazzo’s windows onto Campo Santo Stefano and instead see the views of the Fuzûlî Square of Baku, carefully inserted as part of Menlibayeva’s installation? Confusions, dualities, fictions and whims of imagination are critical elements of a Palazzo such as Barbaro. So, perhaps, the subversions and dissections introduced by this exhibition will prove more fitting than foreign.

In Fuzûlî’s lyrical poetry, inscribed in the works of both artists, sorrow and folly are two companions of love. Love and beauty permeate the ornate walls of the palazzo, yet signs of cracking appear throughout. As Henry James claimed during his long sojourns in Venice, ‘There seems but one way to be sane in this queer world, but there are many ways of being mad! And a 43

palazzo-madness is almost as alarming — or as convulsive — as an earthquake — which indeed it essentially resembles.’5 Such observation may be indicative of Palazzo Barbaro’s turbulent history and its affinity with its expressive inhabitants.

After the initial decline of the 18th century, Palazzo Barbaro experienced a revival in the late 19th century. Its new owners, the American Curtis family, attracted the cream of the literary and artistic societies back to the Palazzo. Claude Monet painted views of the Grand Canal from its water gate, John Singer Sargent depicted its interiors, and Henry James and Robert Browning exchanged notes and held poetry readings in its drawing room.

However by the mid 20 th century Palazzo Barbaro started losing its role in the atistic circuits. Becoming embroiled in property battles it eventually closed its doors as a private venue.

Opposite Palazzo Barbaro, entrance detail Overleaf Almagul Menlibayeva Working still, Fire Talks to Me, 2015, © Almagul Menlibayeva

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Thesis

The Union of Fire and Water attempts to recapture the spaces of the Palazzo Barbaro and, once again, to offer it as a place of artistic inspiration and creativity. As the palazzo opens to the public for the first time, the context of La Biennale, one of the most important art events internationally, is particularly emblematic. It is strangely fitting that the palazzo welcomes the new age of globalization with an exhibition marking a marriage of two cities.

In Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, through imaginary dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, the Great Emperor of the Tartars, the traveller recollects illusory descriptions of cities in Khan’s domain and one can imagine Giosafat Barbaro having a similar conversation with Shah Uzun Hassan.

Speaking of one of the cities, Marco Polo says: ‘I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairway, and the degree of the arcade’s curves, and what kind of zinc scales covers the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past…’6 Thus, by recapturing the spaces, whose significance has been forgotten over time, and reanimating historical connections between them, the works in this exhibition reconfigure the stories of Baku and Venice with a new perspective. They propose a new solution, a city-state in the framework of the International Exhibition. Here, cultural references, historical curiosities, and seemingly remote identities are superimposed to produce a new outlook on the established boundaries between love and aggression, union and rupture, East and West and the Old World Power and the New World Order.

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Victor Hugo, Les Travailleurs (1905), cited in Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams, (Dallas, 1983), p.171

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Ibid., p.100

2

Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire, (Boston, 1964), p.24

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Giosafat Barbaro, Travels to Tana and Persia, (London, 1873), p.57

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Henry James, Letters from the Palazzo Barbaro (London, 1998) , p.132

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Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (London, 1997), p.9

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Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 1972

Palazzo Barbaro

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‘A Plan of the City of Venice’ detailed copper engraved city plan by John Andrews, first published in Plans of the Principal Cities in the World, about 1776

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Palazzo Barbaro San Marco, 2840 Venezia, Italy

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Herein is set forth the Ode of the Master referred to by the Mother of Majnun.

Fuz没l卯, Leyli and Majnun, 1535

Give not thy heart to grief or gloom, Not sink in Love’s despair; For Love’s calamity is doom, The world knows this. Beware!

For grief, though born of passion deep Still causes heavy loss — Then seek not Love: thy manhood keep, Forswear the worthless dross.

Each eyebrow stabs as dagger fierce; Each lock makes poisoned darts That seeks thy very soul to pierce, And from each lovely look there parts I’ll past all counting o’er; A torment and heavy fate Brings jaundiced pallor sore To Love’s bedraggled state.

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I know the torment born Love, For Lovers sigh and moan, They ask no solace from above, They seek to be alone.

Talk not of eyes as black as ink; Avoid the pupils’ glance.

Though black eyes, ‘tis blood they drink, And keep thee in a trance.

And even should Fuzûlî claim A loyalty and joy, And, counting o’er his beauties, name The words he would employ, Be not deceived, for ever he Is caught the more he tries To scape the net, and further, see All poet’s words are lies.

Leyli and Majnun, Khamsa, Herat, 1494–1495 ©The British Library Board, Source Or. 6810

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Giosafat Barbaro at the Court of Shah Uzun Hassan Lala Kazimova

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Previous page Political map of the Ak Koyunlu Confederation, the year of Uzun Hassan’s death, 1478.

Image released under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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It was the year 1473. The Doge of Venice decided to invite over Giosafat Barbaro, whom he respected and admired for his intelligence, bravery, cheerfulness and charisma. If anyone could succeed in such a crucial mission for Venice, it was certainly Barbaro.

Giosafat Barbaro was a fascinating figure in many ways. He came from the aristocratic Venetian family Barbaro. He had mastered the art of war, having commanded the Venetian army in Albania. As a successful merchant, he had travelled to Tana, an area on the shore of the Azov Sea under the rule of the Khan of the Golden Horde, where he had spent sixteen years. During this time, he entered into very lucrative trade relations with the Tatars, which provided him with a deep understanding and knowledge of their traditions, behaviour, culture and language. Finally, his command of the Turkic language was a critical factor in the Doge’s selection of Giosafat Barbaro.

On 18th February 1473, the Doge of Venice sent Barbaro as an ambassador to the Court of the Shah of Ak Koyunlu, Nusrat ad-Din Abu Nasr Hassan Bek, known as Uzun Hassan for his tall, athletic stature. Uzun Hassan ruled from 1468 to 1478, a decade in which he managed to unite territories stretching from the Persian Gulf in the South to the Kura River in the North and from Diyarbakir in the West to Khuzestan and Fars in the East, with the state capital at the city of Tabriz. This inspired Barbaro to hail him as the Shah of Persia.

Uzun Hassan was also a renowned political figure, a skilled diplomat and a great general. He enabled important economic, political and military reforms. By these measures he raised and maintained the country’s power, influence and standing. He was able to establish friendly ties with many European states, including Rome, Hungary, Poland and Naples. Significantly, he forged strong connections, aided by his Mother, Sara, with the Republic of Venice. An important historic figure herself, she is acknowledged as the first Azerbaijani woman-diplomat.

Barbaro arrived at the court of the Shah with a vital mission to convince him to wage war against the Ottoman Empire, who were fast becoming a threat to Venice. Accompanied by Haji 109

Tiziano (called Titian) Vecellio, c. 1488–1576, Daniele Barbaro, 1545 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. © National Gallery of Canada, Accession No: 3567

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Muhammad, the Ambassador of Ak Koyunlu to Venice, he journeyed along with ambassadors sent by King Ferdinand of Naples and by the Pope. In one of his memoirs, Travels to Persia, Giosafat Barbaro wrote that on the ships they had brought with them weapons worth 400 Ducats, silver, precious textiles and other gifts. Unable to reach his destination by sea, Giosafat Barbaro, together with Haji Muhammad, continued their challenging journey alone. They passed Adana and Urfa, near the lakes of Van and Urmia, all the way to Tabriz. Along the way Kurdish tribes subjected them to a series of attacks, during which the Persian Ambassador and Barbaro’s secretary were killed. Barbaro was injured but managed to escape and reach Tabriz several days later. He stopped at a guest-house and sent notification to the Shah of his visit. Immediately, Uzun Hassan requested his presence. ‘I presented myself unto him so ill apparelled that I dare assure you, all that I had about me was not worth two ducats’, wrote Barbaro. He goes on to say of the Shah that ‘he had been well advertised of the death of his ambassador… and also of my robbery, promising me to see all redressed in such sort as we should sustain no loss.’1

And so Barbaro arrived at the Palace of the Shah Assanbek, as he refers to Uzun Hassan in his memoirs. Walking through the carved wooden gates, across a large square courtyard, he reached another courtyard with a fountain in the centre. Here, the Shah sat solemnly with his advisors and nobles, ‘according to their degrees sitting upon carpets after the Morisco manner, tablecloths were spread upon carpets, and every man had set before him a silver basin with a pot of wine, an ewer of water, and a little dish all of silver.’2 He was surrounded by a number of singers, musicians with changs (eastern instruments similar to harps), ouds (pear-shaped stringed instruments similar to lutes) and yard-long instruments that they held with the pointed part upward3 , and close by were rebabs and cimbaloms (eastern stringed instruments), which all soothed the guests with their music 4.

The Shah was very hospitable towards Barbaro, giving him clothes and money. Barbaro presented the Shah with a letter. This 112

he had only managed to save from the clutches of bandits by keeping it hidden in his breast pocket.

Aware of the significant influence of women at the court of Ak Koyunlu, Barbaro managed to secure good relationships with the most important of them. In his book Diplomatic Relations Between the Ak Koyunlu and Safavid States and European Countries, Azerbaijani historian Yagub Mammadov wrote that, in order to execute the secret mandate with which he was tasked by his ruler, Giosafat Barbaro needed the help of Sara Hatun and Despina, daughter of the ruler of Trebizond, Uzun Hassan’s mother and wife respectively. ‘Be sure to visit, show reverence and present a gift to the mother of the ruler, and with discourse befitting her rank, uttered in a pleasant form, convince her to continue this endeavour [the war] as it is clearly beneficial and necessary for her son, nephews and grandchildren, in words and thoughts that are in keeping with the subject and her persona.’5

Giosafat Barbaro spent many years at the court of Shah Uzun Hassan. He accompanied the Shah during his military campaigns and participated at receptions, ceremonies, and festivities organised by the Shah. Giosafat Barbaro’s memoirs remain an invaluable source of information about the history, customs and traditions of the time of Ak Koyunlu.

Barbaro describes the Shah’s Palace, which left a lasting impression on him: ‘…And truly it was exceeding fair. For the timber was well wrought after the façon of a coupe [a ‘kubah’ – a dome], and hanged about twenty clothes of silk, embroidery, and gold and all the floor covered with excellent good carpets, being about fourteen paces over. Beyond this chamber was a great square tent, embroidered, pitched, as it had been, between four trees set to shadow it, between which and the dome there was a pavilion of Bucasin, all wrought and embroidered within. The chamber door was of the wood of sandal, interlaced with threaded gold and nets of pearl wrought and embroidered within.’6

One day, the Shah sent for Barbaro offering him to join his cortege to Shiraz. However, if Barbaro preferred, he could stay safely in Tabriz. As a skilled diplomat Barbaro responded that he 113

A European illustration of Uzun Hassan, date unknown

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would much rather be next to the Shah and in peril than to indulge in the peace and tranquillity of Tabriz. Describing that campaign, Barbaro recounts many interesting facts. Although Shiraz was located 100 miles away from Tabriz, the entire military nobility and closest members of the Shah’s entourage joined the journey with their families, servants, belongings, horses, camels and mules.

They were traveling at such speed that in only three days they reached the city walls. ‘Who could believe that so great number of people, men, women and children, and some in the cradle, should make so great a speedy voyage, carrying with them all their baggage and so good order, with so much dignity and pomp.’ 7 The Shah’s cavalry were an impressive sight: ‘…They are so many in number that it is a good half days journey from the one end of them to the other.’ 8 Furthermore, Barbaro reports that during all the trips he did not see a single sad face: rejoice, jubilance and celebration fuelled their remarkable feat. 9

Fifteenth century Azerbaijan was culturally rich, developed and sophisticated, the Shah himself favouring the arts and science. A friend of Barbaro’s, Ambrosio Contarini, noted the tradition of keeping musicians at court: ‘At his court [Shah Uzun Hassan] there are always a number of performers who sing and dance at his bidding.’10 When his Majesty the Shah travelled through a city or a village, all of the common people, men, women and children would perform a ‘halay’, run to him while holding hands, form a circle, and, according to the customs, sing and dance, jumping up and down at every word. At the centre of each circle, two or three people would play the ‘daf’ (a percussion instrument), which everyone played in their own unique way.

With this reverie of singing and clapping they would greet the Shah.

Cities were the main cultural hubs. Undoubtedly, among the Azerbaijani cities of the time, Tabriz held a special place. Vast, it took three days to cross: ‘There were 320 churches, more than 1060 individual settlements, about 1070 palaces and residences, up to 200 caravanserais [roadside inns] and up to 70 hotels.’11

The city was also admired for cool, shaded gardens and strictly observed hygiene and order: ‘Tabriz’s streets and bazars were so clean and breezy that the intense summer heat did not 116

bother the people in the bazaar’.12 Furthermore, craftsmanship was highly developed in Tabriz. According to the memoirs of Venetian merchant Alessandri, Tabriz’s merchandise was exported to Scandinavia, Poland, and other European countries.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, due to the creation of the Safavid state, Tabriz’s cultural life further flourished. In the seventeenth century, the traveller Evliya Chelebi wrote that: ‘In Tabriz there are about 47 madrasahs, the standard educational centres, about twenty houses for Koran recitation, and approximately 600 schools’.13

The large city of Shemakha was another cultural centre of the Ak Koyunlu state. Barbaro describes how Shemakha, if necessary, could hold nine to ten thousand horsemen and was located six miles from the sea of Baku (today, the Caspian Sea).14 It was a prosperous and developed city, largely due to the fact that it was the centre of the Shirvan silk industry. Its caravansaries accommodated merchants from Turkey, India, Russia and several European countries. Evliya Chelebi wrote ‘Shemakha is an ancient city, very convenient for lodging… In the city there are approximately 7000 houses. In front of each of them there is water, and there are also countless gardens and courtyards, about 700 mihrabs, seven madrasahs, approximately forty schools, and seven bath-houses. The city is safe — there is no theft … [and it has] beauties renowned throughout the world.’15

Barbaro also mentions Baku, as he recalls, located to the right of Shemakha, writing: ‘Upon this side of the sea there is another city called Baku, whereof the sea of Baku takes its name, near unto which city there is a mountain that casts forth black oil, stinking horribly, which they, nevertheless, use for furnishing their lights, and for the anointing of their camels twice a year.’16

Giosafat Barbaro was also impressed by the city of Derbent, ‘A town, as they say, built by Alexander [the Great], standing upon the sea of Baku [the Caspian]... The town, from the one gate to the other, is half a mile broad and the walls thereof are of great stone, after the Roman building… Many who understand the nature of that place call it Temircapi, that is to say, the gate of iron…’ Derbent separated Media from the Scythians and those 117

wishing to travel from the South to Scythia had to enter one gate and exit the other.17

After the death of Shah Uzun Hassan, the country was torn apart by a civil war waged between his sons. The situation became difficult and volatile. Barbaro left the country and returned to Venice. Ten years later, on the insistence of his friend Agostino Barbarigo, the Doge of Venice, he wrote two books about his ‘Travels’ to Tana and Persia.

The great grandson of Shah Uzun Hassan, Shah Ismail Safavi, was, eventually, able to stop the civil war and unite the scattered tribes under the flag of Kizilbash18 , thus creating the great Safavid Empire. He was a remarkable character. Being a brave and skilled commander. he was also a famous poet, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Hatai’. In addition, Shah Ismail had a great ear, and passion, for music. He was an accomplished player of the barbat (a form of lute) and mastered the arts of miniatures and calligraphy. Commissioned by Shah Ismail, the Tabriz library contained rare and valuable world editions. Other libraries were built in the cities of Ardebil, Qazvin and Meshed. These rich libraries turned into large cultural centres and buildings, where calligraphy, miniatures, music and poetry were taught.

Talented artists worked at the libraries of the Shah, including Sultan Mohammed and Bihzad. It is significant that it was the representatives of the Tabriz school who played an important role in the development of miniature art in the Middle East.

The musical and literary majlis19 were incredibly popular, and they were organised at the court of the Shah. The participation of aristocrats in the cultural life of society was of great importance.

Palaces were centres of musical and artistic creation. The role of the cities in cultural life steadily increased. ‘The city was politically, economically and culturally independent. Artisans, merchants and small proprietors were active on the cultural scene. At that time, townspeople were the main connoisseurs of classical cultural heritage’. 20

The artistic heritage of Hatai is very rich, especially as he composed his work in Turkic and Persian. Naturally, the court of such an educated ruler attracted famous thinkers and talented 118

figures of the time. Shah Ismail also summoned intelligent people from the lower classes to his court. It was during this time that Azerbaijani poetry blossomed and found its best expression in the work of the great Azerbaijani poet Fuzûlî. The poems written by the brilliant master beguile with their deep, melancholic emotional content, captured in exquisite verse.

One of Fuzûlî’s most famous works is the poem Leyli and Majnun, which tells of the tragic faith of two lovers. The theme is one of the most popular in the East. The scholar Ignatiy Krachkovsky wrote: ‘Majnun and [sic] are more famous in the East than Romeo and Juliet are in the West, and, who knows, maybe the verse ‘o Leyli’, made up of countless songs as nightfall echoes throughout the Arab East, is directed not only at the night, literally speaking, but also invokes Leyli, eternally in love with Majnun’.

This wonderful and melancholic literary sustenance took root in the Arab soil, and inspired poets to create a multitude of literary works. Eastern written literature includes more than forty poems on this topic, the most prominent of which are the poems by Nizami, Nava’i and Fuzûlî. If Nizami strived to write psychological poems, and if in poems by Nava’i there are strong dramatic themes, then Fuzûlî’s Leyli and Majnun stands out for its lyricism.

In this regard, the wonderful ghazals21, which embellish the poem, play a fundamental role. Each event in the poem has its own corresponding ghazal, which intertwines with the situations and moods of the heroes. Indeed, they are considered an essential feature of the narrative. Ghazals give the poem melody, and it is no coincidence that the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli based his work on Fuzûlî’s poem. His 1908 opera Leyli and Majnun made history as the first opera to come out of the Islamic world.

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Cristofano dell’ Altissimo, c.1525–1605, Portrait of Ismail I Sophi, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi (Gioviana Collection). © 2015. Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali

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Giosafat Barbaro and Ambrosio Contarini, Travels to Tana and Persia, trans. by William Thomas and Eugene Armand Roy, London, 1873, pp. 51–2 2 Ibid. p. 53 3 This is a clear reference to the ‘gidzhak’ instrument.

4 Ibid. p. 52 5 Yagub Mammadov, Diplomatic Relations Between the Ak Koyunlu and Safavid States and European Countries, Baku, 1994, p.97 6 Ibid., p.57 7 Barbaro & Contarini, Travels to Tana and Persia, p.64 8 Ibid., p.65 9 Ibid. p.71 10 Travellers on Azerbaijan, Baku, 1961, p.85 11 Evliya Chelebi, The Book of Travels, 1983 (Third Edition), p.126 12 Ibid., p.133 13 Chelebi, The Book of Travels, p.125 14 Barbaro & Contarini, Travels to Tana and Persia, p.86 15 Chelebi, The Book of Travels., pp.163–164 16 Ibid., p.88 17 Barbaro & Contarini, Travels to Tana and Persia, pp.86–87 18 Azeraijani tribe known for sporting red feathers in their turban, ‘kizil’ here meaning ‘red’.

19 An Arabic term meaning ‘a place of sitting’, used here to describe a special cultural gathering.

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Alexander Boldyrev, Features of Life of 15th–16th Century Herat Society, works by the Eastern Department of the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad (today: Saint Petersburg), 1947, t.4.

21 A poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. It can be understood as a poetic expression of the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love, despite that pain.

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Henry James The Grand Canal 1909

Palazzo Barbaro reborn— the legacy of its fin de siècle salon Ermanno Rivetti

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‘Venice is quite the Venice of one’s dreams, but it remains strangely the Venice of dreams, more than of any appreciable reality. The mind is bothered with the constant sense of the exceptional character of the city: you can’t quite reconcile it with common civilisation.’

Henry James to John La Farge, 21 September 1869 ‘Tenderly fond you become: there is something undefinable in those depths of personal acquaintance that gradually establish themselves. The place seems to personify itself, to become human and sentient and conscious of your affection.

You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it; and finally a soft sense of possession grows up and your visit becomes a perpetual love affair.’

Henry James, Venice, 1882

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By the time Henry James had written his essay Venice, in 1882, the celebrated novelist had been there so many times that he, like so many other writers and artists before him, considered himself more than just a passing visitor or, God forbid, a tourist.

There is ample evidence, in his letters and essays, to suggest that his ‘perpetual love affair’ was not immediate. James was initially unsure about Venice. It seemed indefinable, too mysterious, its art and architecture too overwhelming compared with Florence and Rome, which he knew well. Something must have happened between 1869 and 1882 to change his mind. Repeated visits would have certainly helped him feel more familiar with the city’s topography, and his growing network of friends and peers there allowed him to attain a status more prestigious than that of a mere ‘visitor’. A year before he wrote Venice, the most significant development in James’ experience of the city, and the seed of inspiration from which he produced some of his most memorable novels, was his fast-growing friendship with Daniel Sargent Curtis and his wife Ariana Wormeley Curtis. Eminent Bostonian expatriates, they had just signed a five-year lease on the Palazzo Barbaro, one of the most magnificent, opulent and culturally significant palaces in Venice.

Countless artists and writers frequented the Palazzo Barbaro in the late 19th century, either as lodgers or as guests at the many cultural soirées hosted there. These were initially the effort of the Curtises, and then of the great art patron and fellow Bostonian Isabella Stewart Gardner, the couple’s most illustrious tenant.

It was Henry James, though, who paid the greatest homage to the Barbaro in his novel The Wings of the Dove published in 1902. No small feat considering that, among the Barbaro circle were Robert Browning, one of the 19th century’s most influential poets, and the artists John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Frank Duvenenk, Anders Zorn, William Merritt Chase and Claude Monet, to name but a few.

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Previous page American photographer, 19 th Century The Entrance to the Venice Biennale, from Isabella Gardner’s travel scrapbook, 1895. © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA, USA/Bridgeman Images Opposite Walter Gay, 1856–1937 Interior of Palazzo Barbaro, Venice, 1902. © 2015. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

All rights reserved/Scala, Florence

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A Palace of Art

James transformed his vision of the Palazzo, his memories of the richness of its frescoed ceilings, the stuccos, the paintings by Venetian Old Masters that had been hanging there for centuries, and his impressions of the celestial sunlight that reflected off the Grand Canal and illuminated the ballroom, as a model for Palazzo Leporelli, the ‘great gilded shell’ of a palace in which Milly Theale, the wealthy protagonist of The Wings of the Dove, finds refuge from her terminal disease. There, she protects herself from death by transforming the Palazzo into a fortress of beauty and art. There she reigns supreme, surrounded only by timeless art, providing not only a means of escape but also as a powerful antidote to the corrosive passing of time.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria’s poet laureate and a contemporary of Daniel Curtis’ great friend Robert Browning, wrote one of his most famous poems about this subject. In The Palace of Art, a man constructs a palace for his soul and fills it with beautiful art as a way to escape from the common sorrows of mankind. Soon, however, his soul grows restless and, poisoned by solitude, he decides to go back to the real world, resolving to return to the palace of art ‘with others’. This suggests that great, meaningful art can only be borne of relationships and exchange, not isolation.

If the fictional Milly Theale isolated herself from the world, then the Curtises and Isabella Stewart Gardner did the opposite.

They threw open the doors of the Palazzo Barbaro to the most brilliant minds in the city and created a cultural salon in which artists fed off each other and worked, side by side, to create memorable and meaningful works of art. The Barbaro became one of the most vibrant artistic centres in Venice yet few of us are fully aware of its extraordinary legacy.

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Saved from Ruin

Like many wealthy and cultured Americans, the Curtises visited Italy as part of their Grand Tour. Falling deeply in love with the country they soon left their native Boston, in 1887, to live permanently in Italy. They rented the Palazzo Barbaro from 1881 to 1885 and subsequently purchased it outright. Venice, at this point, was at its lowest point in history, still crippled by the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797 at the hands of Napoleon. Although a popular playground for wealthy foreigners, who bought palaces from formerly wealthy Venetians for very little money, the rest of the city was starving. The city was a forlorn shadow of its former self. The capital of a once mighty empire now looked ready to sink back into the lagoon upon which it was built. Its countless palaces, whilst retaining their charm and romance, were in advancing decay.

The Curtises not only bought the Barbaro, but lovingly restored it. They went to great lengths to faithfully preserve its original architecture and ornamentation. They were the perfect owners, not only wealthy but also refined and discerning lovers of art and literature. They gallantly protected the house and its priceless contents from the ruthless art dealers and antiquarians who, at the time, were stripping works and furniture from abandoned palaces and selling them to wealthy foreign collectors.

Indeed, some of the Barbaro treasures had already been taken and sold off by speculators in the decades before the Curtises took possession of it.

It is unclear how familiar the Curtises were with the illustrious history of their new home or the achievements of its historic owners, the Barbaro family. For centuries the Barbaros enjoyed a position as one of the most important families in Venice and torch-bearers of the great humanist traditions of the Italian Renaissance. During the time of the Venetian Republic, the house was a centre for humanist studies, and the family itself included artists, politicians, generals and philosophers. One of its most 139

John Singer Sargent, R.A. An Interior in Venice, 1899 Oil on canvas, 66 x 83.5 cm Š Royal Academy of Arts, London; photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited

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notable figures was Daniele Barbaro (1514–1570), a scholar of architecture, philosophy and mathematics. He was known for his translation of Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture, which he completed with Andrea Palladio, to this day one of the most influential architects in the Western world. He commissioned Palladio to build the family country home, Villa Barbaro, and commissioned the Venetian master Paolo Veronese to decorate it. The cultural importance of the Villa sees it protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Titian painted Daniele’s portrait in 1545. The work now hangs at the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Just over a decade later Veronese also painted his portrait, which is currently in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Subsequent members of the family commissioned works by some of the greatest Venetian painters of the 17th and 18th centuries to decorate the Palazzo.

Giambattista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci, Antonio Balestra and even Giambattista Tiepolo, whose glorious oil painting The Glorification of the Barbaro Family, 1750, now hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum.

Despite the Palazzo’s fading grandeur in the late 19th century, the echo of glories past was loud enough for Henry James to write in his 1892 essay The Grand Canal, ‘You will never forget the charm of its haunted stillness, nor the way the old ghosts seemed to pass on tip-toe on the marble floors.’ And so, intentionally or not, the Curtises revived the Palazzo’s great artistic legacy and saved it from certain ruin. They became the most celebrated expatriates in Venice, earning the admiration and love of the native Venetians, so much so that some referred to their home as the Palazzo Barbaro-Curtis.

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The Cultural Salon

Daniel and Ariana Curtis were, since their Boston days, passionate about literature and they surrounded themselves with writers and poets. Daniel Curtis took almost daily gondola excursions and long walks on the Lido with Robert Browning. In fact Browning, who often held poetry readings at the Palazzo Barbaro, held his last ever public reading there in November 1889, only a month before he died. Meanwhile, the Curtises’ eldest son Ralph had trained as a painter in Paris and his work had even been accepted at the Salon. He knew many artists, including John Singer Sargent and Frank Duvenenk, and it was largely through him that so many of them came to Venice and fell into the tight but welcoming circle of which his parents were at the centre of.

The social events and artistic exchanges took on a greater force when Jack and Isabella Stewart Gardner, fellow wealthy Bostonian collectors and patrons, started renting the piano nobile of the Palazzo Barbaro from the Curtises. They had previously met, only briefly, back in Boston. Isabella, a vociferous collector, known for identifying and supporting promising young artists, had even bought some works by Ralph Curtis.

Although Gardner first visited Venice in 1884, it was 1890 when she first rented the Palazzo. She would rent the Palazzo five times between 1890 and 1897. Her social events were attended by artists, musicians, exiled aristocrats and pretenders to foreign thrones. Ralph Curtis kept an apartment on the upper floor and would drift in and out at will, perhaps exchanging a few words with Frank Duvenenk or William Merritt Chase. Occasionally, he would drink champagne with Princess Olga of Montenegro and the famously beautiful Countess Pisani.

It becomes tiresome, and somewhat unnecessary, to trace back and pinpoint exactly who introduced James McNeill Whistler to Ralph Curtis, or whether Henry James took tea with Edith Wharton or Robert Browning, or whether it was the Curtises 143

Anders Leonard Zorn, 1860–1920 Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice, Courtesy of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA, USA/ Bridgeman Images

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or the Gardners who first met John Singer Sargent. It is akin to attempting to map the exact dynamics of a large and everchanging group of friends, or recreating with precision the chronological chain of events of a party in which everyone is talking with everyone else, all at the same time. The narrative becomes unclear and circular, and precise details only serve to confuse rather than shed light on who the real protagonist of the story is. Whether it was this artist or that patron, or perhaps the novelist who befriended both. The point is that the common denominator, the root cause, the very heart of this almost unbelievable story remains the Palazzo Barbaro, which simply did what it was built to do — bring great minds together in a beautiful setting.

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More Than Just Nostalgia

Looking back at Isabella Stewart Gardner’s scrapbook, in which her guests would draw, write and paint their praises for the parties, cultural soirées and for the Palazzo itself, it is hard not to feel a pang of nostalgia for a time and a place that is not yours.

The Harvard educated art connoisseur Bernard Berenson, who advised Gardner on many of her purchases, wrote, poignantly, to her from the Palazzo Barbaro in 1923, after all three Curtises had died, ‘If ever I sigh for anything in the past, it is for those days.’

Fragments and reminders of those years at the Palazzo Barbaro are now scattered across the world. John Singer Sargent’s A Venetian Interior, 1898, masterfully portrays Daniel and Ariana Curtis with their son Ralph and his wife Lisa, gathered in the grand ballroom of the Barbaro. The work now hangs at the Royal Academy in London, despite Ariana Curtis originally rejecting the painting on the grounds that it looked too ‘casual’ (Henry James pleaded with her to keep it). Frank Duvenenk’s portrait of Ralph Curtis, from 1878, can be found in the Curtis Galleries in Minneapolis. Sargent’s 1898 portrait of Lisa Curtis now hangs in the Cleveland Museum of Art, while his portrait of Henry James, from 1913, is now at London’s National Portrait Gallery. The greatest monument to those days, however, is Fenway Court, the museum that Gardner began building in Boston, in 1899, to house her growing collection of art and antiquities.

To this day the museum, whose courtyard was built with original features to resemble that of a Venetian palazzo, holds countless testimonies and documents of life at the Barbaro during those years — Whistler’s etchings, Sargent’s watercolours of Venice, faded black and white photographs of gondola excursions, notes, drawings, sketches and paintings executed by every visiting artist that passed through the Barbaro.

The most astonishing aspect of this story is the brief space of time in which it unfolded — the restoration, the cultural salon, 147

the Palazzo’s rebirth. The Curtises first rented it in 1881, while Isabella Stewart Gardner first rented it, off them, in 1890. By 1898 Gardner’s husband, Jack, had died, and she visited the Barbaro for the final time in 1906. Two years later, in 1908, Daniel Curtis died, while Henry James died in 1916. Daniel Curtis’ wife Ariana and their son Ralph both died in 1922. Isabella Stewart Gardner died in 1924 and John Sargent followed in 1925. The spark that had lit up the Barbaro was as bright as it was brief.

Perhaps the last significant artistic moment in its history occurred in 1908, when Claude Monet and his wife were invited to stay there by Mary Smyth Hunter, a wealthy art patron who had rented it from the Curtises and whom John Sargent had previously introduced to Gardner in 1903. Although Monet arrived too late and missed the days of Sargent and Whistler, he set up his equipment on the steps of the Palazzo, facing the Grand Canal and the church of Santa Maria della Salute, and made six paintings of the view at different times of the day to capture the unique and ever-changing Venetian light. In February this year, just one of these works sold at Sotheby’s London for more than £23m.

The Palazzo Barbaro’s legacy, however, is far more complex and important than valuable paintings alone, and far more meaningful than a scrapbook of memories. During the Palazzo’s heyday, in 1887, while its rooms were alive with artists, some of the city’s more progressive politicians were beginning to realise a plan that they hoped would save Venice from its fate as a mere destination for mass tourism. Some of these politicians, friends of Isabella Stewart Gardner, envisioned a city that could reinvent itself through art. In 1887, the city held the Esposizione Internazionale di Venezia, an exhibition of contemporary art hosted in specifically built galleries in the city’s Giardini. Though the exhibition was only open to Italian artists, some expatriate 148

artists were allowed to take part. John Sargent and Ralph Curtis both gave Palazzo Barbaro as their address and showed their paintings. Italian artists such as Ettore Tito, Vittoria Mocenigo and Antonio Mancini who were part of Gardner’s circle, also showed their works.

The event proved so successful that the city organised another International Exhibition, which was delayed from 1893 until 1895. This exhibition, which registered more than 200,000 visitors and included works by Anders Zorn and James McNeill Whistler, was the first Venice Biennale. Two years later, in 1897, John Sargent was on the organising committee for the event, and he and Ralph Curtis both exhibited their work there. Isabella Stewart Gardner was in attendance. This is the real legacy of the Palazzo Barbaro’s cultural salon: its owners, custodians, tenants and the many gifted artists that passed through its doors helped to create the cultural climate that made the Venice Biennale possible. They are an integral part of why so many of us come to Venice, and the reason why today the Palazzo Barbaro is once again open to foreign artists.

Overleaf Claude Monet, 1840–1926 Le Grand Canal, 1908, Image courtesy of Sotheby’s London

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Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 1972

Oil boom Baku and the palace of happiness FUAD akhundov

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Oil Boom Baku Snapshots (1872–1920)

At this time the Baku oil industry was responsible for more than fifty per cent of the world’s crude The first Oil Boom in Baku oil production. While some dramatically changed the internationally famous families image, architecture and overall such as the Nobels and the environment of the Old Citadel Rothschilds dominated Baku’s or ‘Inner Town’ (Icheri Sheher, oil production, the new Outer nowadays part of UNESCO’s Town was the creation, mainly, Cultural Heritage List). With of local oil barons. an estimated history of two

Many of these first thousand years, Baku had only generation entrepreneurs had, fourteen and a half thousand without even basic education, residents in 1872, when the managed to build huge fortunes.

Imperial Russian authorities They expressed their wealth by introduced concessions in oil building extravagant mansions trade, unleashing the genie from outside of the ancient city the bottle. boundary. These houses, in a

The impact of this on the bid to outdo those of rivals, city of Baku is impossible to became increasingly opulent. overstate. The population grew The power and privilege that almost tenfold within the next the oil tycoons enjoyed defined two decades and continued them as a newly emerging, to double every eight to ten and very aspirational and years. By 1914, Baku was home influential class. to almost 215,000 residents.

Sharing many common It became a thriving city of features socially, each of the almost bewildering cultural most prominent Azerbaijani diversity, where no single ethnic oil barons of the late 19th community exceeded thirty-six and early 20 th centuries had some peculiarities that per cent of the population.

A new city emerged outside the made them stand out among medieval ramparts. This was Oil their contemporaries. Haji Boom Baku, an entirely modern Zeynalabdin Taghiyev was known for some audacious society where European urban charitable projects icluding aesthetics, Oriental traditions the first secular school for and the idealised American Muslim girls and the first lifestyle all converged.

Fig.1

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European theatre in Baku.

Mussa Naghiyev, ‘the stingy oil baron’, left the most visible and indelible imprint on the architecture of Baku. Shamsi Asadullayev enjoyed the greatest popularity across the Russian Empire. And then there was Murtuza Mukhtarov. He was known as a very gifted, selftrained ‘drilling wizard’ and an incredibly tough guy.

The phenomenon of Murtuza Mukhtarov (1855–1920) Like many of Old Baku’s oil barons, Murtuza Mukhtarov was not born to privilege.

Originally a bailer, he started toiling in the oil fields in his early twenties. Rapidly, his intuitive aptitude, heroically tough demeanour and shrewd instinct saw him promoted, quickly, to field technician and then manager. By the age of 35 he was, in 1890, owner of his own business.

Mukhtarov had unrivalled hands-on drilling experience.

Those who worked with him used to talk of his uncanny ability to ‘smell’ oil. He was respectfully known as the “drilling wizard”. The company that he established with his brother, Bala Ahmad, was Fig.2

phenomenally successful from the outset.

By 1910, the Murtuza Mukhtarov Joint-Stock Company owned two large plants in Sabunchu and Bibi-Heybat, Baku’s major oil producing areas. Operating state-ofthe-art equipment, the plants employed 250 technicians and more than 1,100 drilling experts.

One of the largest drilling companies in Baku, Mukhtarov’s company reportedly provided about a quarter of all of the underground oil mining equipment manufactured in the area. Murtuza Mukhtarov was also recognised as the inventor of an innovative and successful machine for the production of drill bits. It became known as The Mukhtarov Tool.

A prosperous businessman, Mukhtarov was also known for his altruism and philanthropy.

Amongst his charitable projects was the stately mosque he erected in his home area of Amirajan. Funded entirely

by Murtuza, construction commenced in 1907 and was completed the following year.

The ornate mosque, with its tall minarets and intricate carved stonework, still presides, with a graceful dignity, over the local landscape.

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Meanwhile, Murtuza Mukhtarov’s entrepreneurial activities in Baku continued to expand. He had soon outgrown the local oil business. His ceaseless quest for alternative areas for drilling and oil production ultimately led him to Grozny, an oil rich area in the North Caucasus. His frequent trips there passed through the city of Vladikavkaz. It was here that he met the lady that changed his whole life.

It is likely that the polite but clear “no” he received was due to his humble origin.

Thrown by this response, Mukhtarov reacted dramatically by building an elaborate Mameluke style mosque on the banks of the Terek River.

His lavish gift to the community was effective. Tughanov, as an eminent denizen, was suitably impressed and convinced of Muhktarov’s conviction and intent. This was how Murtuza Mukhtarov reportedly secured Lisa Mukhtarov, One of the attention and affection of Baku’s Oil Princesses the lady of his heart.

The new Mrs. Mukhtarov Legend decrees that while was brought to Baku with full in Vladikavkaz, the capital ceremony. She arrived in the of North Ossetia (Russia), city, accompanied by mounted Murtuza Mukhtarov was invited escorts on white horses, as a to the family home of a retired young oil princess. She would colonel of the Russian Army, become, in time, one of old Ibrahim Tughanov, who heard Baku’s most esteemed and frequent mention of the selfrevered first ladies. made, tough and enterprising

Lisa played a remarkable oil magnate from Baku. role in her husband’s life. Until Accepting the invitation, her arrival in his life, Mukhtarov Mukhtarov was introduced to was a belligerent and severe the daughters of his noble host. figure, a typical product of his Instantly, he was enchanted by environment with a reputation one of them, Lisa. The failure for reasoning with his fists. of his first marriage fuelled With his marriage to Lisa he his determination to marry the was transformed into an erudite Ossetian princess. Typically gentleman known for his direct, Mukhtarov approached refined, British etiquette and a Lisa’s parents with his proposal. penchant for hosting regular five 166

Fig.3

Such a remarkably short period of construction, together with the excellent execution, was due to the famous Kasumov Brothers Construction Company. A family business, run by three brothers from Ordubad, it was a highly popular contracting company offering rapid solutions to a number of oil barons in Baku. The elder A Gothic Palace as a Gift brother, Haji, son of a craftsman, started as a constructor and Traveling was among the would end up running his own most favorite pastimes of business offering lump-sum the Mukhtarovs, a loving construction services. He had couple with no children of a habit of checking up masonry their own. Italy was among works by inserting a thin blade Lisa’s favourite European of a penknife in-between the detinations. One of these trips stones, and God forbid should had a lasting effect on Baku’s it ever pass through! Although skyline when Mrs. Mukhtarov professionally rigorous, he was was reportedly beguiled by a known for his decadent lifestyle. palazzo she visited. When she shared her admiration with her In contrast, the second brother, Ali, was a scrupulous man of beloved husband his apparent strict morals. These qualities indifference did little to hint at ensured his responsibility in his grand response.

Józef Plośko, one of Baku’s the financial matters of the family business. most distinguished architects,

Imran Kasumov, the was commissioned to design an ambitious mansion inspired youngest of the brothers, was the most intriguing in character. by the palazzo. Completed in 1912, the magnificent residence An experienced constructor, he was also a committed was constructed in just one patron of the arts providing the year. Its former address, largest hall of his residence for Persidskaya (Persian) Street rehearsals of Leyli and Majnun, is now respectfully named the first Muslim opera staged after Mukhtarov. o’clock tea parties. In addition, Lisa Mukhtarov became a benevolent public figure, actively, and passionately, involved in the Children’s Hospital Charitable Association and the Baku Branch of the Caucasian Association to Combat Tuberculosis.

Fig.4

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in 1908. Extraordinarily, Imran, also known for his rich baritone, performed one of the key arias in the opera, under the artistic alias of ‘Kengerlinski’.

Like Murtuza Mukhtarov, Imran Kasumov was blessed with a charming, cherished wife. She, Rubaba, was a very liberated and sophisticated lady. Muslim by birth, she was amongst the most fashionable and influential women in Baku, elegantly dressed from Paquenne, one of the city’s most revered haute couturiers.

At a time when most of her countrywomen were veiled, she would boldly wear esprit, a cutting-edge style of the day fashioned from Ostrich feathers.

Like the Mukhtarovs, Imran and Rubaba had no children but had tender affection for one another. They were considered one of the happiest couples in Baku. Unfortunately, the idyll of both couples was to be short-lived. While for the Mukhtarovs it was the fatal Soviet takeover that devastated their happiness, the Kasumovs fell victims to a darkly tragic twist of fate entwined with the Mukhtarov palace.

In January 1914, as the palace was nearing completion, Imran Kasumov slipped on 170

a rooftop while installing an impressive statue of a medieval knight. Ironically, it still crowns the building. He fell to an instant death at the age of 35.

The tragedy stunned the city.

Further tragedy ensued, only weeks later, when his beloved Rubaba committed suicide.

‘After Imran’s death’ she said, ‘I have two options: either to leave Baku for good, or to go under veil’. None of the options was acceptable for her determinedly free spirit and she passed away at the tender age of 32. One of the couple’s last photographs is still cherished by the Kasumov family. It carries the inscription ‘passed away’ and has the dates of their death: 20 th January 1914 for Imran, and 11th February 1914 for Rubaba.

Meanwhile, long before this fatal episode, when the palace was just emerging from a cocoon of scaffolding, Lisa Mukhtarov was still entirely unaware of this extravagant gesture of her husband’s affection. Legend holds that Murtuza ‘accidentally’ drew her attention to a newly built structure while promenading with her along the street that now bears his name.

‘Darling, does it not remind you of something?’ he asked.

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unleashed terrible personal tragedy for the Mukhtarovs.

This, of course, was the fate for most of the oil dynasties.

For the Mukhtarovs, however, it was far more severe. To the Bolsheviks, Murtuza Mukhtarov was not only ‘a bloodsucker capitalist’, but he was also personally involved in chasing one of their leaders, Joseph Stalin, whose early revolutionary Triumph and Tragedy of the activities in Baku were Mukhtarov Palace heavily imbued with crime and extortion. This destroyed After less than a decade of any possibility for Mukhtarov being enjoyed by its original to survive under Soviet rule. owners, the Mukhtarov palace

As Baku faced occupation had already garnered an by the Red Army a surge of eventful history. oil baron families were

Lisa Mukhtarov reportedly granted part of her stately home attempting to escape the city. for use as an orphanage and, in Murtuza defiantly continued with his traditional five o’clock 1914, she founded the Muslim Ladies’ Benevolent Association tea parties. The number of of Baku. This brought together a people attending these parties group of the most progressive, was diminishing dramatically and when one of Mukhtarov’s influential and liberated ladies, friends offered to evacuate him, many of them wives of the city’s Azerbaijani financial elite. he reportedly offered: ‘I was born in this city to a poor According to archive records, family, and I have hard-earned Murtuza Mukhtarov gave the everything I have. So as long as Association a plot of land in Baku’s suburb of Qala. The plan I live, no barbarian will enter my home in soldier’s boots.’ to build a sizeable orphanage

Soon after, the Red Army was thwarted by the arrival soldiers did enter his palace, of communism. albeit on horseback. Incensed

The Communist takeover with this violation, Mukhtarov of Baku on 28th April 1920 Lisa’s reaction was nothing but astonished awe: ‘It is the same palace I saw in Italy… How could it simply appear in Baku?

This is a fairy tale! ’

Murtuza offered a short and sweet explanation ‘I love you so much, dear, that I can make a fairytale a reality for you. This is your home now.’

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reportedly fatally shot the invaders before turning the gun on himself.

Lisa Mukhtarov was quickly evicted from the palace and forced to flee to Istanbul with a Turkish diplomat. Ultimately, with the following wave of Russian emigration, she ended up in Paris. Here, she would pass away in the mid–1950s.

Curiously, even her nieces, who cherished her photographs for decades, were unable to provide the exact date of her death due to the constraints of the Cold War.

A bitterly tragic end to the life of one of Old Baku’s first ladies. Her legacy remains, however, in one of Baku’s undisputed architectural treasures.

Baku is the place where every stone Has a story of its own.

And the stories could be magic, Should they not end up so that tragic…

Afterword: The Palace Reborn How the exquisite Mukhtarov palace was used under Soviet rule is also very interesting.

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elimination of illiteracy among Muslim women. This was a hugely significant instrument in the liberation of local women, many of whom still wore veils.

After an interim period of serving as a gallery for some decades it became the famous Palace of Happiness. Here, as a civil marriage registration hall, generations of Bakuvians got married. However, with long neglect due to a lack of funds the palace gradually fell into disrepair and dereliction.

With Azerbaijan’s independence regained, the Mukhtarov palace was thoroughly restored. Although the interior was updated with elevators, sunroofs and a number of necessary contemporary facilities, the Palace’s exterior was returned, faithfully, to its original beauty and splendour.

Today the building is mainly used as the Official Receptions Hall. A part of the Mukhtarov Palace, however, is still used for marriage registration.

Through it, the spirit of love that created this magnificent landmark lives on in today’s Baku.

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Figure 1 Alexander Mishon, An oil fountain in lokbatan, 1888 Figure 2 Agha Murtuza Mukhtarov, 1859–1920 Figure 3 Lisa Mukhtarova (neé Tughanova) Figure 4 The Mukhtarov Palace, c.1920 Figure 5 Imran and Rubaba Kasumovs.

Courtesy of the Kasumov Family Archives.

Figure 6 One of the last photos of Imran and Rubaba Kasumovs, c.1910, The George Photography Studio.

Inscription beneath reads: ‘Passed away January 20, 1914 and February 11, 1914.’

Courtesy of the Kasumov Family Archives.

Figure 7 Vignette dedicated to the 20 th anniversary of the Murtuza Mukhtarov Joint Stock company, 1910. Courtesy of the Makhmudov family.

Figure 8 The mosque donated by Murtuza Mukhtarov to his fellow-villagers in Amirjan in 1908–1909. Design by Ziverbey Ahmedbeyov, constructor Usta Kerbelai Ahmad.

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Figure 9 View of the Baku Seafront, the Maiden Tower and the mansion of Issa-bey Hajjinski, a recognized local oil baron and public figure, c.1914 Figure 10 Nikolayevskaya Avenue, one of the main streets of Baku’s downtown that changes names as many times as regimes the city faced: from Nikolayevskaya (Nicholas Street) at the times of the Russian Empire (until 1917) to Parlamentskaya (Parliament Avenue) during the frist Republic of Azerbaijan (1918– 1920), Communisticheskaya (Communist Street) under the Soviets (1920–1991) and finally Istiglaliyyet (Independence Street) upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, c.1910

Mukhtarova (sitting in the middle, the fourth from the right) with the spouses of the most influential Azerbaijani oil barons and intellectual elite.

The photograph, presumably made in the Mukhtarov palace, has an interesting detail: the portrait of Nicholas II, the last Russian Emperor was crossed out by ink on the original, to preserve the picture from the Soviet regime. c.1914 Figure 14 Victor Korvin-Kerber, An aerial snapshot of Baku’s Inner City, c.1916–1918 (detail) All images courtesy of the author and The National Archives of Photo & Cinema Documents of the Republic of Azerbaijan, unless stated otherwise.

Figure 11 Alexander Mishon, Bailing, the earliest way of drilling for oil in Baku with a living man (bailer) sinking into the hole and digging by hands unless he encountered an oil layer. Should oil come with associated gas, the bailer had to be taken out immediately to avoid suffocation, late 1880s Figure 12 Oil lakes in Sabunchu, one of the richest production areas around Baku, c.1890 Figure 13 The Baku Muslim Ladies Benevolent Association established by Lisa Fig.14

Gaston Bachelard Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter 1942

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Herein is set forth the Ode or Prayer recited by Majnun at the Kaaba Stone.

Fuz没l卯, Leyli and Majnun, 1535

For pain of Love’s affliction is my prayer O, Lord, that ne’er a breath I draw that grieving sorrow does not share, Let Love but die with death.

An addict to affliction’s gnawing pain Make me, Thy suppliant; Let not Thy bounty fail, as desert rain, Let not Thy Grace be scant.

While life endures take not my freedom dear To choose the road of tears; Affliction seek me always: I am near.

I seek affliction’s fair.

Let not my dignity to worthlessness Sink ’neath the pain above: That she charge not a false forgetfulness, Or blame for faithless love.

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Bestow upon my Idol greater charms With every wind that blows; And let me still clasp sorrow in my arms, As still her beauty grows.

For where am I, and where my going back To honour and to praise?

The joys of poverty no more I lack — Make these my ending days.

Without her let my body weakly sink That merest zephyr slight May waft me to her, making airy link And change to day my night.

And like Fuzûlî, with a joy and pride Of love, increase my share.

O, Lord, leave not Majnun to Majnun tied.

Hear, mighty God, my prayer.

Mirak Majnun in the Desert, Khamsa, Tabriz, 1539–1543 ©The British Library Board, Source Or. 2265

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and the oil burns Kasia Redzisz in conversation with Almagul Menlibayeva.

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In this interview Kasia Redzisz, Senior Curator at Tate Liverpool talks to Almagul Menlibayeva.

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Kasia Redzisz: Fire Talks to Me, your work for the YARAT pavilion, is a new commission, set very strongly within the context of the building where it is displayed. Can you please try to explain the aspects of its history which triggered the idea for your film?

Almagul Menlibayeva: The building indeed provides an important ground for our project The Union of the Fire and Water. The curatorial concept behind it is to explore the connections between Venice and Baku. These relationships are reflected in the history of Palazzo Barbaro (1425). One of its early occupiers, Giosafat Barbaro had strong connections with Baku and the Caspian region. He spoke the Azeri Turkic Oguz language and was the Venetian ambassador in Persia under the Turkic ruler Uzun Hassan. Today, this territory covers the north of Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, part of Turkey and Iraq.

Giosafat travelled extensively in the Caucasus region and Crimea, which had important links with the Golden Horde and the Ottoman Empire.

The interior of the palazzo features many symbols and allegories of the rise and fall of 200

this mighty, influential dynasty.

Of these, the most important is the two-headed eagle. A symbol with its origin in Turkic military culture, and later adopted by Byzantium as the symbol of the union between East and West.

My work, which is a multi-channel installation of video projections scattered throughout the rooms of the palace, remains in a subtle dialogue with those elements.

It is screened in five rooms. The opening sequence, installed in the foyer, corresponds with two ancient portraits of members of the Barbaro family. It contains a quote about Baku taken from Giosafat Barbaro’s memoir Travels to Tana and Persia (1487). The main body of the work, presented in the three adjacent rooms, reflects, in a narrative structure, the history of the city of Baku.

This sequence represents another historical moment; it brings the viewer to modernity.

You are referencing the short period of economic boom at the beginning of the 20 th century, a result of the rapid growth of the oil industry in Azerbaijan. What motivates this shift of focus?

The architecture of Palazzo Barbaro can be associated with the iconic Seadet Sarai

(Palace of Happiness) in Baku, originally commissioned by oil tycoon Murtuza Mukhtarov as a gift to his beloved wife, Lisa Tughanova. She had been enamoured by Venetian architecture after their travels.

Mukhtarov was amongst the great oil industrialists of the era. Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, Musa Naghiev, the Nobel Brothers and the Rothschilds were some of those who made Baku a byword for wealth and power. Mukhtarov’s extravagant residence was built, in the Gothic Revival style, by eminent Polish architect Józef Plośko in 1911-1912. The house remains a celebrated, arguably definitive, example of the Baku Oil Boom architecture.

For me the crossconnections between the Barbaro and Mukhtarov Palaces were catalysed by political events of the time. The Barbaro Palace, and the fortune of the once mighty family, diminished after Napoleon's defeat of Venice. Very soon, the dynasty was reduced to a pair of elderly brothers living in poverty in the garret of the Palazzo and forced to turn most of it into apartments. The Palace of Mukhtarov in Baku lost its owners in 1920 as a result of

the Bolshevik revolution.

Mukhtarov became a protagonist of your film. He is a fascinating, tragic character.

A symbolic figure for the times.

He lived through the Russian Empire, through a short glimpse of democracy following World War I and, finally, dying as an opponent of the Bolshevik Revolution. He built a fortune within just a couple of years, only to lose it shortly afterwards.

What is his contemporary relevance? Can you talk more about the role of his character in your film?

Murtuza Mukhtarov is comparable with today’s new, young entrepreneurs. Mukhtarov was born to a poor family living near the oil fields of Baku.

With no formal education he managed to become a highly qualified, self-taught engineer with a wide reputation as one of the best drilling experts in Baku.

His income accounted for a quarter of all of the ‘Russian oil’ at the time.

A working-class hero turned into a capitalist bourgeois...

I don’t have a political judgment about his success. Without prosperous entrepreneurialism the oil industry in Baku would never have developed. His name was blamed and banned by 201

Oil rigs in Surakhani, a suburb of Baku, c.1900 Courtesy of The National Archives of Photo & Cinema Documents of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Soviet propaganda for many years. Murtuza and his wife Lisa had no children, but they established a house for orphans. The adopted children were forced to stop communicating with her (Lisa) under a dictate of Stalin’s Soviet government. After the death of Murtuza, Lisa was forced to leave Baku. She, like her husband, did not agree with the Bolsheviks. She died penniless and alone in France.

Murtuza Mukhtarov lived through the collapse of the Russian Empire. A short period of drastic change in the country between 1918 and 1920 when the Republic of Azerbaijan was proclaimed. It was the first Muslim republic which granted women the right to vote.

Imagine all of the social, cultural and economic changes and how they influenced life in a vibrant city such as Baku, which became a multi-cultural meltingpot, where Muslim traditions mixed with the modern European lifestyle. I have a huge respect for his talent and great empathy for him. The city of Baku was developed by the local Azerbaijani population, supported and influenced by funding from successful entrepreneurs.

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As we know, Murtuza strongly opposed the Bolshevik revolution. The life of the young democratic country dramatically ends with his death in 1920. He committed suicide when the Red Army attacked his palace.

The story of Murtuza ended but the story of his palace continues into, and throughout, the 20 th century. After Sovietisation, the building of Murtuza and Lisa was given to the Club of Liberated Turkic Women.

Following that, it functioned as The Shirvanshahs Museum. It is now the Palace of Marriage Registrations and a venue for formal receptions. The street running on the right side of the building carries the name of Murtuza Mukhtarov. It is one of the most iconic places in Baku.

So we see, both buildings, in Baku and in Venice have their own lives. My idea was to merge the story of Murtuza and his building with the Palazzo Barbaro as a reference to the Venice that inspired Lisa and him.

I see Murtuza as a natural phenomenon of his time.

Fuad Akhundov, a historian specialising in Baku’s development of that period, identifies an interesting detail which describes Murtuza

very well. He, Murtuza, knew Stalin. They fought with each other. Other local and foreign oil industrialists like the Nobel Brothers, Rothschild, Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, decided to ally with Stalin and sponsored his activities in the region.

This helped Stalin to gain the support of the working class.

Mukhtarov was intolerant of all revolutionaries, especially Stalin, who had to hide from him at the beginning of his revolutionary activities in Baku.

As history shows, he was right in his assessment of Stalin.

He seemed to understand Stalin’s mentality. He was opposed to it and supported the monarchy. He believed that changes can be generated by hard work. He saw the industrialisation and rapid development of Baku as a result of it.

Your fascination with this character is clearly manifested in the film. You portrayed Murtuza as an emblematic figure.

For me he was an emblematic figure as he witnessed and participated in the history of all the Caucasus and Central Asia, which were part of the Russian Empire. He witnessed the rise and fall of Caucasian

Republics, the revolution and the incorporation into the USSR. This is, for me and for many others, important.

Murtuza Mukhtarov was banned but was still an eyewitness to the treatment of the Azerbaijani people by the radical Bolsheviks. Those who experienced these events knew, very well, the power of colonial censorship. Under such ruling, the official history must be edited, rewritten and hidden.

The Soviet Union was highly sophisticated in this respect.

History, together with people’s lives, was erased. Murtuza, and those like him, who lived before the Soviet Union were completely alienated by Soviet propaganda. Yes, for me he was an iconic and tragic figure but we have the opportunity to revive the spirit of his struggle against the radical forces, which encompassed and enslaved the people of this region.

I hope that my film will help to show under what circumstances people succeeded and died regardless of the oppression they were forced to experience. Through this project I want to say that Baku is open to worldwide dialogue and to start sharing the history of the Caucasus.

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Storytelling seems indeed an important aspect of this work. What you just said applies to creating a vision of both – past and present.

Your film seemingly refers to two historical moments.

Nevertheless, thinking about Murtuza and his fortune, one has to consider the situation in contemporary Azerbaijan and the changes its capital went through within the last decade or two. At one end you have the buzzing Baku of the first twenty years of the 20 th century: the rapid modernisation of the country, changes in social structures and lifestyle and the combination of the modern and the traditional. The oil boom at the turn of the 20 th century left indelible imprints on the architecture and built environment of Old Baku. The New City was constructed hand in hand with its new identity.

One cannot resist looking for parallels with the present time, after the collapse of yet another empire – the USSR. With impressive buildings, designed by foreign starchitects, the new centre of Baku is being created alongside its new official image as a contemporary metropolis.

This process includes creating a new contemporary art centre for 206

YARAT, the organisation which is the commissioner of the pavilion. How do you approach what is currently happening in Azerbaijan?

In my works I often address the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ‘post-Soviet condition’ in Eurasia. Azerbaijan is now independent and I see many positive parallels between the current status of Baku and the earlier oil boom at the beginning of 20 th century. There is rapid urban development. The thriving economy attracts foreign investment. This opens the doors to worldwide connections.

It also significantly funds universities and educational programmes. My best source for understanding the situation is always the local taxi drivers.

They are my best friends for asking for great locations and local specifics. All of them talk of the tremendous changes Baku has undergone through the last twenty years.

Those who left Baku during the Soviet times now hardly recognise it. They love Baku and treat its history as a blueprint for what is happening at the moment. History repeats itself but in a different dimension.

That is why, I believe, we need to analyse our history

and reflect upon it using contemporary art as a tool for discussion and education, a platform for raising the understanding of what happened and how to build our future. The current time is seeing a resurgence of Baku. We can understand the processes taking place at the moment through historical experience of what used to be and what followed.

This is a very positive and enthusiastic view given controversies surrounding local politics. Paradoxically, it reminds me of the initial tone of Coming Spring (1925), a novel by Stefan Ż eromski. The first chapters describe the revolution in Baku.

The rest of the book muses on modernisation, utopian beliefs and disillusionments. Your film tackles a similarly dystopian moment, doesn’t it?

Thank you very much for mentioning Coming Spring.

The book reminds me of the Poles in the Caucasus.

During the partitions of Poland (1772–1918) the country was divided between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg Austria. The Russian Empire also divided Azerbaijan.

Between 1813 and 1828, the

Gulustan and Turkmanchai agreements brought the dismemberment of the Azerbaijani people and the division of its historical lands. Russia waged a war of aggression in the Caucasus, and forced recruitment of young men from all of the occupied territories (mostly from Poland).

Cezary Baryka, the novel’s main protagonist, finally travels to his homeland and is dismayed to find it is not as his late father had described. In this case the close collaboration of Murtuza Mukhtarov and Polish architect Józef Plośko provides a deeper understanding of how people perceived the Caucasus.

Baku gave them an amazing ability to merge Eastern and Western cultures which, still, we witness. For instance, Plośko built for Murtuza not only his Venetian-style palazzo but also a beautiful mosque in the North Caucaus.

Later, following the death of Murtuza Mukhtarov, after nearly thirty years in Azerbaijan, Plośko moved to Warsaw.

He was disappointed, feeling the same as Cezary Baryka, and immigrated to France. That is an experience specific to the times, the geo-political situation and common history.

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At the same time, as in many of your works, as well as in this film, there is a feeling of timelessness. The scenes are set in both historical and contemporary settings.

The clothes of your characters and their props are a mismatch of both the brand new and the traditional. This chronological ambivalence enables the installation to work on a metaphorical level. Can you tell us more about the symbols embedded in your piece?

I use the visual layer of the work as a symbolic field.

This has its parallel in the interiors of the Barbaro Palace with its allegorical and symbolic decorations. I like this way of working with visual forms.

Playing with sensuality, richness of colours and shapes, their hidden meanings. My excess, which critics often address, is a reaction to the censorship which I experienced when growing up. Analogically to how Baroque was responding to the Reformation. I evoke a certain mood through the choice of scenery. I shot a major part of the film in Baku’s most ornate palatial residence, the Ismailia Palace. It was built for the oil baron, Agha Musa Naghiyev, who was known as the richest 208

oil baron in the city. The building was also designed by Plośko.

The architecture of the palace is strikingly reminiscent of Palazzo Contarini in Venice, which corresponds to the idea of merging Baku and Venice.

The use of sound in the palazzo is another way of bringing the two places together. In collaboration with Rashad Alakbarov we invited musician and sound artist German Popov to compose a multi-layered soundtrack for the space. One can hear Venetian clavecin and modern oil machines. Most importantly, we incorporated parts of the first Muslim opera Leyli and Majnun, based on an ancient Arabian love story of Leyli and Majnun. It was staged in Baku in 1908 and was the first ever opera in the Azerbaijani language. As we know, the first public operas were opened in Venice three centuries earlier.

I like to think about it as a metaphorical connection.

Another important symbol are the pomegranate fruits. Pomegranates have sacred status in Azerbaijani culture. There is a Festival of Pomegranates, which celebrates them as symbols of prosperity and fertility.

In Christian religions the fruit, broken or bursting open, is a symbol of the fullness of Jesus’ suffering and resurrection.

I merge these two meanings in the film with the performance by a traditional Azerbaijani dancer, who is dancing on pomegranates which lie on a white fabric in the palace.

These represent the crucial, dramatic, brutal, mercilessly last moments for Murtuza before his suicide.

Smashed pomegranate seeds burst into flames. The title of the work Fire Talks to Me indicates the importance of this scene. There is the universal symbolism of fire embedded in it but I am more interested in the regional aspect of it.

Indeed, there is a metaphor of the rebirth of Phoenix — the revision of a past through contemporary art filters. For me the smashed pomegranates seeds engulfed by fire symbolise the concept of the exhibition The Union of Fire and Water.

I chose the title Fire Talks to Me as a dialogue between man and the land. Oil and gas burned, freely, for millions of years in the fields of the region. As a result it became the cradle of various cults of fire. One of them became a

solid monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism. Then, men learned how to use oil and gas and forces of nature.

This knowledge of using natural energy was spread over the world via the Silk Road trade and developed into a worldwide oil industry. The ‘economic fire cult’ is what we have now.

We can trace the history of the earliest exploration of onshore oil fields in Baku to the 7th century BC when, in the age of the Median Kingdom, the use of oil is recorded. Marco Polo wrote in the 13th century that the excellent Baku oil was used for illuminating houses and treating skin diseases. Azerbaijani geographer Abd ar-Rashid Bakuvi (14th–15th centuries) noted that up to 200 camel bales of oil were exported from Baku every day. Since a single camel bale is the equivalent of approximately 300 kg of oil, this would have meant a regular supply of 60,000 kg of oil per day. Giosafat Barbaro, in his book Travels to Tana and Persia, documents the local knowledge of obtaining oil, which was unknown and exotic at the time.

The symbolism of fire is obviously very relevant for Baku – from the ancient, mythological meaning of land and fire in 209

the region you just described, through to the three flames in the heraldic crest of Baku. It is a historical symbol, which the city regained after the Soviet regime. Its representational use nowadays is further manifested through its presence in the city’s tallest building, the spectacular Flame Towers. Yet, thinking about your earlier works, there is also a natural association with burning oil fields. I see it not so much in relation to the economic condition of the region but as a creative and destructive force both in its alchemical and infernal dimension. Watching films such as As The Oil Burns (2006) one cannot fail to refer to, for instance, the opening scenes from Werner Herzog’s Lessons of Darkness (1992).

Shot in post-war Kuwait it has a political dimension, which nevertheless was overshadowed by a more abstract apocalyptical feel. There is something tribal, even primary in your film...

As The Oil Burns was shot in burning landscape in the Caspian part of Kazakhstan.

Within this scenery there were three shamans performing silent, mute rituals. Those mysterious figures were staged in a way that suggest that they 210

originate from somewhere on the border of the real and the mythological. From the way they behaved you could see that they live close to nature.

I remember this unique experience of their presence in this surreal, infernal, burning landscape. Anyone who has lived through such a moment has to doubt modern illusion, progress. Is a human being above nature? Through that work I wanted to have my own, personal conversation with my land. To keep it simple and direct. I wanted to allow myself and others to be as ‘wild and wise’ as we can. Naked, talking with animals, struggling with nature and living off it, without any prior knowledge, reason or prejudices. Seen in this respect, the tone of the film is affirmative.

It has changed significantly in the video installation entitled Kurchatov 22 (2012). The work is about a former Soviet nuclear test field in the North of Kazakhstan. I recorded my conversations with inhabitants of the city who had survived the tests and the radiation.

Their words, their memories provided ground for my personal reflection. I directed our dialogues as if it was the land,

not the people, complaining to me. It was talking about its traumas and about the disastrous moments it has been through. The content I refer to, the memory of survivors, their dialogues, and interviews, support the idea that it is as if the land is complaining to me. It is me listening to my land, of the disaster she has been through. Fire Talks to Me probably has the same topic, the revision of memory.

You approach Baku as any other city in the region. Your practice seems to always be underlined by the sense of specific place and a non-place at the same moment. In the context of the Biennale and national pavilions it seems relevant to ask how you define your locality.

My project for the pavilion is ‘site-specific’, and is close to the territories portrayed in my other works. All parts of the Caspian region have always been connected. Over the centuries we have seen the co-existence of two different worlds, Turan as the nomadic and Iran as a sedentary civilisation. Their outlooks, philosophies and conceptions converge in Baku and other Caspian regions. Each culture

was shaped and expressed by the other through global economies, military action and foreign politics. The history of Azerbaijan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China and Russia – is the history of countries bearing names of hundreds of states that were influenced by these two different worlds.

The nomadic and the sedentary.

Like an impossible union of Fire and Water this shaped the politics of Eurasia.

The last direct connections we had were under the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. The Union of Fire and Water, the title of the pavilion, reminds us about history and addresses the present. You can also see it as another union, questioning the contemporary division between the East and the West.

It is somehow against the marginalised, exoticised history as seen through a colonial lens.

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Herein are set forth the Quatrains sent by Leyli to Majnun

Fuz没l卯, Leyli and Majnun, 1535

My garments all are badly torn; the hand disgrace Has rent my dress: both friend and foe now join to smirch my name: My soul and body Love’s dear name make captive in this place — Do not these sorrows then suffice, without thy adding more?

I keep my sorrow secret, neither rest nor patience mine, No friendliness may share my hidden misery: A captive in prison though it be no choice of mine — Do not these sorrows then suffice without thy adding more?

My pallid face assumes the hue of blood embittered tears; My soul, grief nourished, burns apace in desolation’s fire; The dastard hand of Fortune my heart with sorrow sears — Do not these sorrows then suffice without thy adding more?

Now sad with wish for union, afflicted with despair, I know now what my sickness is, from whence my troubles come, Afflicted with grief of love that nothing can repair — Are not these sorrows then enough without thy adding more?

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Apart from thee my company is grief and sad distress; First on by one, then all as one, they give me cruel pain; So deeply am I fall’n in grief, so cruelly they oppress — Do not these sorrows then suffice without thy adding more?

Alone before the doctor versed in love did I reveal The secret of my trouble, how from far eternity My fate was sure: he knew no art my misery to heal — Do not these sorrows then suffice without thy adding more?

Fuzûlî, see, this bleeding heart is born of single thrust; Thou knowest ‘tis impossible to render up one’s love.

No remedy exist on which to fasten all my trust — Do not these sorrows then suffice without thy adding more?

Mir Sayyid Ali Majnun brought to Leyli’s tent, Khamsa Tabriz, 1539–1543 © The British Library Board, Source Or. 2265

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Giosafat Barbaro Travels to Tana and Persia 1487

Smoke and Mirrors Sara Raza in conversation with Rashad Alakbarov

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In this interview Sara Raza, the Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator for the Middle East and North Africa, sat down with artist Rashad Alakbarov to explore the juncture between history, fiction and place.

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Sara Raza: I would like to start with discussing the role that history plays within your work, given that the narrative behind The Union of Fire and Water is historically directed at the relationship with the past concerning two separate, and very different cities, Baku and Venice?

Rashad Alakbarov: Within my practice the history of science plays an important role and I am interested in the space where fact and fiction collide. In fact there is an interesting saying in the Azeraijani language that states that if one deletes all the lies from history, it is dubious as to whether there will be any truth left at all! Coming back to your question there has always been something fascinating about history as both a science and a fable. It has an almost fairy tale quality. It is true that Baku and Venice are two separate histories and cities, but through the probing of two families’ histories, the Venetian Barbaro and the Azerbaijani Mukhtarov, I am able to create a visual narrative that interweaves both the personal and the public story.

It is interesting that you mention that you are interested in fairy tales and stories 290

because so much of history in Azerbaijan has been transferred through a rich oral storytelling tradition that relies heavily on fable and folklore.

This is precisely the history that occupies a space within my practice and I can say that half of my works derive from this form of history, unique to Azerbaijan. From our tradition of tea-house storytelling through to literature and theatre.

These narratives are informed with contrasting elements and parables such as good and evil, light and dark. Representations of these can be equally traced within my visual works.

Yes, I can definitely trace that trajectory within your practice, especially evident within your complex installation works, which are concerned with light and shadow. In these, there are a number of polarised social and cultural conditions working with, and against, each other. So I wanted to ask you, what are the opposites at play within your current project for Venice?

I am exploring the duality of symbols for Venice by taking the Venetian lion, for example, and superimposing it onto the more common image of the lion within Azeraijani culture as an emblem Fig.1

of courage and strength. I am looking a lot to poetry and lyrical language within my visual works, particularly the works of Fuzûlî [the pen name of 16th century Azeri poet and writer Muhammad bin Suleyman — SR] and his celebrated love story of Leyli and Majnun. I am using poetic metaphor for the decline of one place and the rise of another. So there is a duality going on here through the dissection of cultural symbolism and signifiers through poetic discourse.

I find it rather interesting that you would employ the metaphor of the lion, which is a strong symbol of power across both the East and the West.

Do you also perceive it as symbolic of the two heads of each family?

The large sculptural installation I am creating is based on the lion and references this East/ West power divide. In Venetian cultural the lion is presented as an entire state. You can see this idea in Saint Mark’s lion, which holds a piece of this evangelical text and is representative of a power throughout the centuries. Whereas in Eastern traditions, particularly the Islamic zodiac and the PersianTurkic culture, the lion and the

sun are presented together as one. This is largely rooted in ancient Zoroastrianism, a faith strongly associated with nature. For me nature is closely entwined with the arts and poetry and, by referencing Fuzûlî’s poetry, I am attempting to merge the East and the West in a more lyrical fashion. In terms of the lion being symbolic of both men, yes you could say that there are some similarities.

In particular, one man being the head of one of the most powerful families in Venice, the other his counterpart in Baku.

Interestingly, one of the ceiling decorations, Glorification of the Barbaro Family (c.1750),

by Giambattista Tiepolo, which is now in the Metropolitan Collection in New York, depicts a powerful Barbaro petting a roaring lion.

There is a strong Ottoman history that spread into Europe and particularly Venice. This is supported by evidence in historical literature and art.

However, I am interested in the research that you undertook specific to this project and what methodologies you employed.

I read a lot on Ottoman history, especially the reign of 16th century Ottoman ruler Suleiman, who was responsible 291

for conquering almost all of Europe. I looked at the relationship between Venice and the Ottoman Sultanate and specifically the Barbaro family.

As you know, my project relates to the historical home of the Barbaro — the Palazzo Barbaro.

Incidentally, it was also the former residence of Giosafat Barbaro. Giosafat was what you could call an Orientalist who travelled to Persia during the time when the land was part of the Turkic-Azeri dynasty known as Ak Koyunlu. It was interesting for me to discover these travels and it opened up questions for me on Giosafat’s identity and motives. In particular, his perception of the East and Azerbaijan. At the same time I was looking at the 15th century court of Shah Uzun Hassan, the leader of the Ak Koyunlu tribe.

So how did you choose to subvert, or challenge, Orientalist views in the present day through your position as a contemporary artist?

I took on the role as a visual artist and representative of an Azerbaijani person being present and occupying the space of a Venetian. When I first entered the space of the Palazzo Barbaro I, perhaps subconsciously, had feelings 294

of envy; slight elements of jealousy towards the beauty of the palazzo. I had the desire to occupy and claim the space.

The irony was that I knew that we also have the same elements in the architecture of Baku, but I had never worked within such a large space before.

However, my family background as a son of an architect and an engineer did inform my direction in dealing with scale and perception. Furthermore, I decided to employ the use of mirrors, both old and new, within my project to answer questions through reflection.

Venice was, of course, a big port and the production of glass and mirrors was a vital part of the core trade to Asia along the great Silk Route.

Both Venice and Baku are still important port cities along the contemporary Silk Route and important conduits between Europe and Asia for trade, commerce and ideas. There is a fascinating history of movement and flux here that still continues through the Biennale.

What interests me most about the Silk Route is the precise movement of people, the movement and relocation of people and the new settlements that arose from that. If you think

about it, all of the Asian people would travel westward and usually through the Black Sea to Venice and further south.

There was a vast crosscirculation of migration between people along this historical route and the idea of trade held multiple meanings and functions. There was a lot of negotiation across cultural boundaries and I think this continues through art and the Biennale.

The concept of negotiation is an interesting subject in itself and brings me to my final question concerning your dialogue and exchange with your co-artist Almagul Menlibayeva who is also presenting a project as part of The Union of Fire and Water with curator Suad Garayeva.

We are always in close contact and, through conversation, we exchange our thoughts and ideas. In terms of working with Almagul it has been important for me to understand what she is working on. Even when I conceived my own personal installations I still wanted to maintain a dialogue and synergy between the works within the space. Similarly, working with Suad, through the curatorial exchange and support she

has provided, has given me great confidence to explore new ideas and new angles, which I might, otherwise, not have approached. Much of this dialogue is back and forth and, incidentally, I am also making a large-scale installation with steps that resemble Venetian bridges that will physically and metaphorically connect people. You see, at the end of the day, the concept of conversation and exchange, at both a local and global level, is central to my practice as an artist.

Previous page Giambattista Tiepolo 1692–1770 The Glorification of the Barbaro Family, ceiling decoration, c. 1750. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Š 2015. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence

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A ghazal from Shah Ismail Hatai, Translated by Gladys Evans (Moscow, 1971)

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Your face, the full moon, are the same — or are they not?

Temptation-like, your curls enflame — or do they not?

Hey beauty, o unhappy me, her graces — all The riches of our age proclaim — or do they not?

Your silken lashed and your brows, like crescents, are As thin as bowstrings, so you claim — or do you not?

When the ascetic curses the young lover, are His curses foul blows and shame — or are they not?

Hatai, when he weeps on leaving you, then have His tears a river’s semblance — or have they not?

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Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 1972

Acquiring ‘Living Space’ Francesco bonami

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I do not want to talk about the artists in the exhibition. Their work will have plenty to say with no need for critical or curatorial filter. I disregard art that desperately needs some kind of interpretation.

I would rather talk, or think, about something that the general public is maybe not so aware of in a context like the Venice Biennale. For example, the national Azerbaijani novel Ali and Nino

by Kurban Said.

It was first published in Vienna in 1937 at the very cusp of the rise of Nazism. On November 5th, in the same year, in the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting and revealed his plans for acquiring ‘living space’ for German people. The idea of acquiring ‘living space’ is both so alien and so relevant to our present time. ‘Living space’ is also an oxymoron in Venice where the living space is very much an artificial space created to welcome, host or repel around thirteen million people every year.

A people that belong to The Republic of Tourism.

There are those, like me, who belong very much to the decaying species of white middle-aged males born in Florence.

We grew up knowing the Cradle of Civilization. It is, for us, interesting to talk about a book like Ali and Nino which was, only a few decades previously, considered just a folkloric local novel.

It now, of course, represents a precursor to multiculturalism and globalisation. The world today is full of Alis and Ninos and the Venice Biennale looks more and more like a convention of the Alis and Ninos of the world.

The story is about a romance between a Muslim Azerbaijani boy and a Christian Georgian girl in Baku in the years 1918–1920.

It explores the dilemmas created by ‘European’ rule over an ‘Oriental’ society. It presents a tableau portrait of Baku during the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, a period that preceded the long era of Soviet rule. What seemed magic then looks hard now even after almost eighty years. The world, Europe, the West, the Orient and all of the rest have not yet come to terms with the necessary shift that the world needs to make in order to become a

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truly civilised communal place for love and balance.

All of us are playing the Ali and Nino roles. In 2003, when I was the Director of the Venice Biennale I titled my exhibition Dreams and Conflicts. It envisaged a polarised universe ruled either by unfulfilled dreams or excruciating conflicts. Twelve years later, the title of my Biennale still reverberates with poignancy and relevance with the world’s futures imagined by this year’s curator Okwui Enwezor.

The title of the show at the Yarat pavilion, The Union of Fire and Water, is very much a reference to the dreams and conflicts I thought would have lasted only for the duration of the 2003 Biennale. Looking at the world today, I like to imagine Venice as Nino and Baku as Ali. Two lovers who, at different times, dreamed about modernity. Venice up until the 18th century and Baku at the beginning of the 20 th century were both wishing to acquire ‘living spaces’ in very different ways to those that Hitler had in mind in 1937. They were looking at spaces for life. A better life, wishing to conquer each other’s heart, but not each other’s freedom, independence and identity.

I see Palazzo Barbaro, where the Yarat pavilion will be, as the Casablancan nightclub where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman meet again and rediscover their lost love affair. As the world falls apart around them they seem, for a moment, to disappear in the name of true love. Although we are constantly overwhelmed by political and geostrategic nightmares we find some precious respite in this fictional reality that the Venice Biennale is able to create every two years. The dictatorship of reality is, temporarily, defeated by the tyranny of love. Art is a threshold between the real world and another world. One, not less real, but maybe, like the Casablanca nightclub, a world where hope and despair can sit at the same table sharing a drink for the time being until the enemy arrives to clear the place.

It is an enduring feeling to witness, Biennale after Biennale, the Alis and Ninos of the world multiplying. Exploring more and

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more to acquire living spaces where they are free to confront their own dreams and conflicts over and over, imposing the tyranny of love to those who yearn for any form of dictatorship, intellectual, political, racial or otherwise.

Venice and Baku. You and me. Ali and Nino. The world and its futures. All gathering at dusk in the same nightclub.

The Casablanca of the future. Play it again Sam. Play it again Ali. Play it again Nino.

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Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Faust Part II, Translated

by Anna Swanwick (Boston, 1884)

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What marvel illumines the billows, which dash Against one another in glory? They flash, They waver, they hitherward glitter, and bright All forms are ablaze in the pathway of night; And all things are gleaming, by fire girt around Prime source of creation, let Eros be crowned!

Hail, ye billows! Hail to thee, Girt by hoy fire, O sea!

Water, hail! Hail, fire’s bright glare!

Hail to this adventure rare!

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artist biograhpies

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RASHAD ALAKBAROv (b. 1979, Baku, Azerbaijan) Lives and works in Baku.

Education 1997–2001 Faculty of Decorative Arts, Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Art, Baku Solo Exhibitions 2014 Words, Museum of Modern Art, Baku, Azerbaijan 2013 The Other City, YAY! Gallery, Baku, Azerbaijan Selected Group Exhibitions 2015 Making Histories, Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Azerbaijan Art Dubai Contemporary, Dubai (UAE) 2014 ARTBAT FEST 2014, public art festival, Alma Ata, Kazakhastan Avesta Art 2014, Avesta, Sweden In Between / Viewpoint, Gelleria Michela Rizzo, Venice, Italy

Word and Illumination in Cooperation With the British Museum, Le Meridien Medina Hotel, Almadinah, UAE East Wing Biennial, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Love Me Love Me Not, Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan and its Neighbours, Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan 2012–2013 Fly to Baku. Contemporary art from Azerbaijan, Kunsthistorisches museum — Neue Burg, Vienna, Austria; Spazio D — Maxxi building National Museum of XXI Century arts, Rome, Italy; 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 Here…Today, Old Sorting Office, London, UK Cosmoscow Art Fair, Manezh, Moscow, Russia Artist-In-Residence, Delfina Foundation, London, UK

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2013 Ornamentation, 55th Venice Biennale, Azerbaijan Pavillion, Venice, Italy 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 Islamic Art Festival, Sharjah, UAE From Waste to Art, Gala archeological and ethnographic museum, Baku, Azerbaijan Merging Bridges, Modern Art Museum, Baku, Azerbaijan Maiden Tower. III International art festival, Baku, Azerbaijan 012 Baku Public Art Festival, Baku, Azerbaijan 2011 Foreward, Alternative Art Place, Baku The Journey to the East, Contemporary Art Museum, Bialystok, Poland Fabulous Four, Kichik QalArt, Baku, Azerbaijan City, Central House of the Artist, Moscow, Russia Big Caucasus, PERMM Gallery, Perm, Russia 2010 Azerbaijan Contemporary Art, Aidan Gallery, Moscow 2009 Bakunlimited, ‘Cultural Days of Azerbaijan’, Voltahalle, Basel, Switzerland 2008 Art Is Not Ugly, Atrium of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin

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Steps of Time: Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan, Residenzschloss, Dresden, Germany Wage Floor, Contemporary Art Centre, Baku 2007 Aluminium 3, International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Baku East & West, Museum of Art, Die, France Omnia Mea, 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy 2006 Caucasus, NCAC, Moscow, Russia Transfusion, Contemporary Art Centre, Liestal, Switzerland Aluminium 2, International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Baku 2005 Aluminium: Art + New Technologies, Shirvanshah’s Palace, Baku 2003 7+7. More Transparent, The Museum Centre, Baku 2002 Orientalism: Inside & Outside, International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Sattar Bahlulzadeh Exhibition Hall, Baku 2000 Wings of Time, Exhibition of Young Artists, Khagani Art Center, Baku

ALMAGUL MENLIBAYEVA (b. 1969, Kazakhstan) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Education 1987–1992 Academy of Art and Theatre, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Fine Art, New York, USA My Silk Road to You, Tengri-Umai Gallery, Almaty, Kazakhstan

2014 Transoxiana Dreams, Videozone, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany (upcoming November 2014)

2010 Lonely at the Top, Europe at large #6 (Refrains from the Wasteland), Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (M HKA), Antwerp, Belgium Daughters of Turan, Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York, USA

2013 Empire of the Memory, Ethnographic Museum, Warsaw, Polland An Odd For the Wastelands and Gulags, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria

2009 Exodus, Tengri-Umai Gallery, Almaty, Kazakhstan Kurban, Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York, NY

2012 Casal Solleric, La Palma De Mallorca, Spain

2008 Kissing Totems, Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York, NY

2011 Exodus, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany Les Rêves Perdus D’aral, Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris, France Transoxiana Dreams, Priska C. Juschka

2007 On the Road, Galerie Davide Gallo, Berlin, Germany

Selected Solo Exhibitions

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of 2014 Contemporary Art (APT7) Gallery of Contemporary Art of Kazakhstan, Modern Art (GOMA) & Queensland Art Museum of Contemporary Gallery (QAG) Art, Strasbourg, France (upcoming One Sixth of the Earth, Ecologies of December 5–March 2) Image, ZKM — Zentrum fuer Kunst Baku Biennale, 2014, Baku, Azerbaijan und Medien Technologie, Karlsruhe, (upcoming December 5) Prologue Exhibition of Honolulu Biennial, Germany; Contemporary Art from Kazakhstan, Hawaii, USA (upcoming 30 of October) Center of Contemporary Update / Post memory, Motorenhalle, Art in Vinzavod, Moscow, Russia Dresden, Germany; III International Biennale of Color of Pomergranate: 90 th Anniversary Contemporary Art “Moya Yurga“, of Sergei Paradjanov, State gallery Khanty Mansiysk Biennale, Russia Solyanka, Moscow, Russia; Contemporary Video Art, Videonale — Threads, Museum of Contemporay Art Donetsk, Donetsk, Ukraine Arnhem, Netherlands; Nomadic Art Camp, Center of Changing Worlds: Contemporary Art Contemporary Art Bishkek, from Central Asia, Singapore Art Stage Bishkek State Museum, Kyrgyzstan 2014, Singapore 18th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 2013 Lightness & Gravity: Contemporary Works Lost to the Future: Contemporary Art from from the Collection, Queensland Art Central Asia, Lassale College of Arts, Gallery Foundation Grant Collection: Singapore, Singapore Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, th Film program Media Art Lab, 5 Moscow Australia Biennale of Contemporary Art, Off the Beaten Path: Women, Art and Manege, Russia Violence, Redline, Denver, Colorado, USA A Sense of Place, Wellin Museum, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times.

Hamilton, New York Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Screening of “Transoxiana Dreams” at Art, Arsenal 2012, Kiev Biennial, Ukraine MoMA PS1 as part of EXPO 1: New York The Bride’s Face, PERMM Museum of Projects Art and Science focusing on Contemporary Art, Perm, Russia the concept of IDENTITY Double Vision, Motorenhalle, Center for lecture and exhibition, Madre Museum of Contemporary Art Dresden, Germany Contemporary Art, Napoli, Italy Colors of the Oasis, Seattle Asian Art Kino der Kunst, International film Museum (SAAM) Seattle, USA festival, Munich, Germany Ultra Memory, Palace of the Female Power: Matriarchy, Spirituality Independency, Astana, Kazakhstan & Utopia, Museum of Modern Kunst, Aftermath, Akbank Art Center, Arnhem, Holland Istanbul, Turkey

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Ecologies of Image, MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain Paganism, Kalmar Konstmuseum, Kalmar, Sweden East is West: Three Women Artist, LASALLE College of Arts – ICA Singapore, Singapore 2011 The 6th Tashkent Biennial, Tashkent, Uzbekistan Off the Beaten Path: Women, Art and Violence, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; Newcomb Gallery, Tulane University and Prospect.2 Biennial, New Orleans, USA 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia Between Heaven and Earth: Contemporary Art from the Centre of Asia, Calvert22, London, UK Expanded Cinema, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia Off the Beaten Path: Women, Art and Violence, the Global Health Odyssey Museum, Atlanta, GA Video Re: View Festival as part of Videonale 13, BWA Contemporary Art Gallery, Katowice, Poland COLLECTION XXVII: East from 4° 24’, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (M HKA), Antwerp, Belgium Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany Plot for a Biennial, Sharjah Biennial 10, Sharjah, UAE Off the Beaten Path: Women, Art and Violence, the Chicago Cultural Center, IL, USA

2010 21st Century: Art in the First Decade, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia Mother, Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, Graz, Austria Tarjama/Translation, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Off the Beaten Path: Women, Art and Violence, El CuboTijuana Cultural Center, Tijuana, Mexico; the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, Mexico 2009 Off the Beaten Path: Women, Art and Violence, the Stenersen Museum, Oslo, Norway University of California, San Diego, CA Re-imagining October, Calvert 22, London, UK Unconditional Love, Collateral Event of the 53rd Venice Biennale, Arsenale Novissimo 89, Venice, Italy East from Nowhere, Arsenale II, Turin, Italy Tarjarma/Translation, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY 2008 World on Video – International Video Art, Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Florence, Italy; Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy; Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy Love Love Love, Martos Gallery, New York, NY The Peekskill Project, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY The Distance to the Sun, Galerie Davide Gallo, Berlin, Germany Asia, College of New Jersey Art Gallery,

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Ewing, NJ Time Code, Mambo Museum of Contemporary Art, Bologna, Italy I Dream of the Stans, Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY 2007 Live Cinema/The Return of the Image: Video from Central Asia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA Destination Asia, Galerie 88, Mumbai, India Central Asian Project, Asia Art + Cornerhouse, Almaty, Kazakhstan; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Tashkent, Uzbekistan Peristan, performance and screening for the opening of the 52nd Venice Biennale, Central Asian Pavillion, Venice, Italy Time of the Storytellers, Museum of Contemporary Art — Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland Thermocline of Art — New Asian Waves, ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany The Paradox of Polarity: Contemporary Art from Central Asia, Bose Pacia Gallery, New York, NY Central Asian Project, Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK 2006 Catodica, curated by Maria Campitelli, Trieste, Italy Actual Archives: Central Asian Contemporary Art, Rosamira Festival, Moscow, Russia Caravan Seray, Zones of Contact, 16th Sydney Biennale, Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay, Sydney, Australia.

International Biennial of Photography — Brescia, Brescia, Italy Art and Conflict in Central Asia, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University,

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Milwaukee, WI Polyzentral, Art Festival of Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany Art from Central Asia, Center of Contemporary Art, Zamok Ujazdowskie, Warsaw, Poland The Syndrome of Tamerlan: Art and Conflicts in Central Asia, Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee, WI 2005 On the Road, 51st Venice Biennale, Central Asian Pavilion, Venice, Italy 26th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Lublyana, Slovenia Vom roten Stern zur blauen Kuppel, Ifa Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany 2004 Sacred Places of Kazakhstan, The Center for Contemporary Art, Almaty, Kazakhstan M and Others, 1st Bishkek International Exhibition of Contemporary Art — Bishkek, State Museum, Kyrgyzstan Art-Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk, Russia International Visions, The Gallery, Washington, D.C. Pueblos y Sombras, Canaja Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico Natural Women, Visible Voice, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2003 Art-Novosibirsk, Novosibirik, Russia Almaty Art, Almaty, Kazakhstan Caravan Café, Rocca di Umbertide — Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, Perugia, Italy 2002 Catmania, Illuzeum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Nomad Land, Art and Culture from

Central Asia, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany First Festival of Video Art, Kazakhstan Re-orientation: Art on Central Asia, ACC Gallery, Weimar, Germany Fourth Biennial of Graphics, Novosibirsk, Russia 2001 The Days of the Culture of Kazakhstan in Moscow, Moscow Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia Collection 2000, International Vision, The Gallery, Washington, D.C. Communication and Experience of Interaction, Central Asia Festival of Contemporary Art in VDNH, Almaty, Kazakhstan Handmade, Pushkinskaya 10, Saint Petersberg, Russia Nomads Culture in the End of the Centuries, State Museum of Modern Art, Almaty, Kazakhstan SELECTED FILM FESTIVALS 2013 KINO DER KUNST International film festival, Munich, Germany 2012 Kinoshock International Film Festival, Anapa, Russia Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany 48 th Pesaro Film Festival, Pesaro, Italy Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, the Spanish Cinematheque and the Cineteca — Matadero Madrid, Spain

2011 Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France 15th International Short Film Festival Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland 22nd Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany Jardin d’été, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Spanish Cinematheque, Madrid, Spain VIDEOAKT International Videoart Biennial, Barcelona, Spain ((.mOv)) Videoarte en mOvimiento, Lima, Peru Expecting the Images, Carte Blanche to the Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon 40 th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2010 que faire? art/film/politique, Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Labos d’Aubervilliers, Espace Khiasma, Maison Pop, Cinema le Melies, Paris, France Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Chatelet Theatre, Paris, France INVIDEO 2010, Milan, Italy Kunstfilmtag 2010, UN..SHARPNESS OF THE DOCUMENTARY, Dusseldorf, Germany Shoot the Shooter, SANFIC, Santiago International Film Festival, Santiago, Chili

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21st Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil Oberhausen International 56th Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Jeu de Paume National Museum and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; Reina Sofia National Museum and the Spanish Cinematheque, Madrid, Spain Fractured Geographies: A New World Border, Maison Pop’ de Montreuil, Montreuil, France 2009 Golden Drum International Video Festival, Hanti-Mansiisk, Russia Native Dancer,38 th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Jeu de Paume National Museum and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; Reina Sofia National Museum and the Spanish Cinematheque, Madrid, Spain 2008 Oberhausen International 54th Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Jeu de Paume National Museum and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; Reina Sofia National Museum and the Spanish Cinematheque, Madrid, Spain 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

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2007 Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain 2006 Scanners: NY Video Fest, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, NY Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2005 Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin/Madrid, Jeu de Paume National Museum and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany, Germany; Reina Sofia National Museum and the Spanish Cinematheque, Madrid, Spain 2004 Sacred Places of Kazakhstan, The Center for Contemporary Art, Almaty, Kazakhstan Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany 2003 20 th World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands FILM PROJECTS 2008 Art Design for “Native Dancer” dir.

Guka Omarova, screened at the 38 th International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands

AWARDS AND GRANTS 2013 Main Award, KINO DER KUNST in the International Film Competition, Munich, Germany 2011 KfW Audience Award, Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany Open Society Institute Budapest, Art and Culture Network Program Grant 2010 Prize de la Nuit (Night) Award for Exodus at the 8 th International Festival Signes de Nuit, Paris 2009 Gold Tambourine Prize: Video Art, 1st Prize, Golden Drum International Video Festival, HantiMansiisk, Russia 2003 Sacred Places of Kazakhstan, 3 rd Prize, Center of Contemporary Art, Soros Foundation, Kazakhstan 2002 First Video Festival, 2nd Prize, Center of Contemporary Art, Soros Foundation, Kazakhstan Tarlan, an independent prize of Kazakhstan 1995 Asia Art, Grand Prix, Second Biennial of Central Asia, Tashkent, Uzbekistan Darin, the state Grand Prix for artists, Kazakhstan

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Contributors

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Aida Mahmudova

is the Founder and Creative Director of YARAT, a non-profit art organisation which she launched in October 2011 with a group of artists. YARAT has commissioned over 120 projects to date and is dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and abroad. In Baku, the organisation has led a varied education programme for multiple audiences, hosted film festivals, created two public art festivals, produced exhibitions, commissioned artists and forged collaborations with museums and international institutions. In March 2015, YARAT opened a new permanent space for contemporary art in Baku: YARAT Contemporary Art Centre, a dedicated hub for contemporary art and art education in the Caucasus, Central Asia and neighbouring countries. Aida is herself a practicing artist, whose work has been shown at exhibitions both in Azerbaijan and overseas. Her first solo USA show will be held at the Leila Heller Gallery in New York City from 28th May to 5th July 2015, and she is exhibiting at the 56th Venice Biennale as part of the Vita Vitale group exhibition at the Palazzo Garzoni. She is a member of the Middle East and North Africa Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern, in addition to being the Curatorial Director at the Baku Museum of Modern Art.

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Ermanno Rivetti

has been a writer at The Art Newspaper for almost four years.

As well as covering European and UK News and Art Market, he manages additional editorial projects for the paper, such as The Year Ahead magazine and The Art Newspaper’s Venice Biennale application for iPhone and iPad. He has previously contributed articles to the Observer, Monocle and TAR magazine, and wrote the latest edition of Fendi’s The Whispered Directory of Craftsmanship, a modern day guide to the finest examples of Italian craftsmanship and design.

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Francesco Bonami

is a curator and writer living in New York and Milan. He was the director of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin from 1995 to 2015. From 1999 to 2008 he was the Manilow Senior Curator at large at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Artistic Director of the Fondazione Pitti Discovery in Florence and the Centro di Arte Contemporanea Villa Manin. He was the director of the 50th Biennale di Venezia of Visual Arts in 2003, the curator of the 2nd edition of the SITE Santa Fe Biennial in 1997, was one of the curators of Manifesta 3 (2000) and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. He is the Chief Director of ANEW magazine. Bonami has authored monographs on the work of Doug Aitken, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Thomas Demand, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Gabriel Orozco and Jeff Wall, among others. He is a regular contributor to La Stampa, Flair, Icon, AD, Vanity Fair, Donna Modern, Grazia Casa, Artforum, Parkett and T magazine, part of the New York Times. He has published several books, among which Maurizio Cattelan: Unauthorized Autobiography and Curator: An Autobiography of a Mysterious Job. His most recent book is Il Bonami dell’Arte: Incontri Ravvicinati nella Jungla dell’Arte.

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Fuad Akhundov

is an enthusiastic historian and researcher of old Baku. He holds an undergraduate degree in Arabic Studies from the Oriental Department of Baku State University and a Masters in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. After a short period of teaching at school, Fuad spent fourteen years as an officer of the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Azerbaijan prior to moving to Canada in 2007.

He was the host of The Mysteries of Baku television show on the Public TV Channel in Baku for a number of years. Fuad currently lives between Toronto and Baku, where he offers a series of untraditional walking tours and lectures on Baku history and actively partakes in a variety of creative projects.

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German Popov

is a musician, sound artist and researcher. Throughout all of his projects he works on establishing the lost contacts with sources and archetypes of modernity. A significant part of his research is dedicated to incorporating ethnographic and anthropological data into his artistic activities. He has been involved in various musical and social events focused on the topic of Central Asia. Under the stage name OMFO he has published several musical works and soundtracks, amongst which is the soundtrack for 20 th Century Fox’s Borat’s Cultural Learning of America. His current research is based on combining ancient art forms with novel techno-scientific pursuits and performance concepts. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Sainkho, Huun Huur Tuu, Almagul Menlibayeva and Atom TM and labels that have published his work include Solaris music, Essay recordings, Universal, G-Stone, Atlantic and Blue Asia. In addition, he has also curated The Water Music Festival at the House of World Cultures in Berlin and performed at the Venice Biennale and Biennial of Sydney.

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Kasia Redzisz

is Senior Curator at Tate Liverpool. Between 2010 and 2014 she was Assistant Curator at Tate Modern where she worked on major exhibitions such as Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963–2010, Mira Schendel and Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan. She has also curated group shows such as Out of Place and Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. In addition to her work for international programmes, she is involved in the Tate collection, working on the Russia and Eastern Europe Acquisition Committee. Prior to joining Tate, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. In 2007 she co-founded Open Art Projects, a non-profit organisation devoted to contemporary art, where she has run a programme of commissions with artists such as Pawel Althamer, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys and Piotr Uklanski. Her recent projects include the exhibitions For Each Gesture Another Character at Art Stations Foundation in Poznan (2014), Modest Muses at the Tatra Museum in Zakopane (2014) and an on-going collaboration with artist Mirosław Bałka, Otwock. She’s an author of texts about contemporary art and a contributor to Frieze magazine.

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Lala Kazimova

is a Senior Academic at the Institute of Art and Architecture of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan and an author of numerous monographs and over forty academic articles. She graduated from the Uzeyir Hajibeyli State Conservatoire of Azerbaijan with a degree in History of Music and Musicology in 1983. She completed her doctoral degree in 1988 with a thesis on ‘Ghazals of Fuzûlî in Azerbaijani Music’, which was published as a monograph in 1989.

Kazimova is the editor-in-chief of the first Azerbaijani popularscientific magazine Yol+, which she founded in 2006. She is also the founder and director of Kukla, an art-doll gallery based in Baku since 2013.

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Sara Raza

is the Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator for the Middle East and North Africa and desk editor for ArtAsiaPacific magazine (West and Central Asia). She is a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, London. Raza was the adjunct associate curator at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah in 2011–14, where she curated several exhibitions with leading and emerging artists from the Middle East, including Wafaa Bilal, Adel Abidin and Mohammed Kazem.

Previously, she was the founding head of curatorial programmes at Alaan Artspace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and curator of public programmes at Tate Modern. Raza has curated several independent international exhibitions including The Pavilion Downtown Dubai (UAE), Plug in ICA (Canada), Sh Contemporary (China), Art Hong Kong and the South London Gallery (London).

She has also curated projects for international biennales and festivals and will curate the 2015 Public Art Festival for YARAT, to coincide with the 1st European Games in Baku. Previously, she was the lead curator of Rhizoma at the 55th Venice Biennale, commissioned by Edge of Arabia (2013), 6th Tashkent Biennale Central Asian Salon, Uzbekistan (2011) and co-curated the 2nd Bishkek International in Kyrgyzstan (2005). She blogs regularly about her practice at sararaza.com

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Suad Garayeva

is the Curatorial Director of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre (Baku), where she oversees the development and public display of the YARAT Collection, as well as the temporary exhibition programme. She was previously a consultant for YARAT’s Love Me, Love Me Not exhibition as part of the Collateral Events of the 55th Venice Biennale and a coordinator for the National Pavilion of Azerbaijan at the 54th Venice Biennale. Before joining YARAT, Garayeva worked as a curator and a specialist in Contemporary Art from Russia and the CIS at Sotheby’s, London. She curated the pioneering At The Crossroads exhibition in 2013, which introduced contemporary art from the Caucasus and Central Asia, followed

by At The Crossroads 2: Art from Istanbul to Kabul in 2014. She also headed the Russian and Eastern European Contemporary Art sales, including Contemporary East and Changing Focus in 2013. Garayeva has also curated exhibitions on video art and photography at various venues in Baku, Moscow, London and Amsterdam, such as the GRID International Photography Festivals in 2012 and 2014. She contributed articles to various publications, such as L’Officielle Art (Paris), Nargis Magazine (Baku) and Spears (Moscow). She is a member of the Russian and Eastern European Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern.

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about yarat

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YARAT is a non-profit art organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan. Founded by Aida Mahmudova and a group of artists in 2011, YARAT is dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally.

YARAT (which means create in Azerbaijani) has commissioned over 120 projects to date, the majority of which have been in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Education is at the heart of YARAT’s work — they hold artist residencies, workshops, lectures and screenings. In 2014 397

they launched a summer school and a new building housing artists’ studios and spaces to support their residency programme. YARAT’s programme ARTIM (meaning ‘progress’ in Azerbaijani) supports young practitioners in the arts providing opportunities to curate and feature their work in exhibitions.

YARAT Contemporary Art Centre opened in March 2015 and is the organisation’s first permanent space. The 2,000m2 centre, converted from a former Soviet-era naval headquarters, overlooks the Caspian Sea and is a dedicated hub 398

for contemporary art and art education in the region.

The centre will feature both temporary exhibitions and exhibitions from YARAT’s permanent collection.

The permanent collection focuses on work by leading artists from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and neighbouring countries, as well as international artists whose work resonates with Azerbaijan.

In 2012, YARAT opened YAY Gallery, a social enterprise where proceeds of sales are shared between the artists and funding YARAT's projects.

YARAT has also produced two 399

Public Art Festivals in Baku, exhibitions in collaboration with the city’s museums and international projects such as a collateral event for the 55th Venice Biennale.

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List of works

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1.

Almagul Menlibayeva Fire Talks to Me, 2015 Ten-channel 4k video installation, surround sound. Entrance: 8 min, Transition: 6 min, Main: 17 min © Almagul Menlibayeva Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 212-265 2.

Rashad Alakbarov Lion of Fuzûlî, 2015 Found bricks, stone, laser-cut metal 700 x 350 x 85 cm © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 308-313 3.

Rashad Alakbarov, Precariousness of History, 2015 Laser-cut metal 400x75x200 cm © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 328-337 4.

Rashad Alakbarov Untitled (Omnes Viae Ducunt Venetias), 2015 Wood, metal base 840x460x260 cm © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 296-307 5.

Rashad Alakbarov Do Not Fear, 2015 Daggers, swords, plexiglass, metal, light source

250x150x130 cm © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 342-345 6.

Rashad Alakbarov Untitled, 2015 Metall, watercolour on paper, light source 380x260x284 cm. © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 338-341 7.

Rashad Alakbarov I Was Here, 2015 Found mirrors, wood, iron, plastic, light source 300x300x180 cm © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre pp. 314-327 8.

Rashad Alakbarov Untitled, 2015 Oil on canvas 120x90 cm © Rashad Alakbarov Courtesy of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre not illustrated 9. © Almagul Menlibayeva © Rashad Alakbarov, Lisa, 2015 Mixed media installation Dimensions variable pp. 272-273

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Bibliography

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Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938), trans.

by Alan C. M. Ross, Boston, 1964 Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay On the Imagination of Matter (1942), trans. by Edith R. Farrell, Dallas, 1983 Giosafat Barbaro and Ambrosio Contarini, Travels to Tana and Persia, trans. by William Thomas and Eugene Armand Roy, London, 1873 John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels, London, 2005 Alexander Boldyrev, Features of Life of Fifteenth to Sixteenth Century Herat Society, works by the Eastern Department of the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad (today: Saint Petersburg), 1947

Henry James, The Wings of the Dove, London, 1993 David Joselit, After Art, Princeton and Oxford, 2013 Lala Kazimova, Ghazals of Fuzûlî in Azerbaijani Music, Baku, 1989 Ignatiy Krachkovsky, Selected Writings, Vol. II, Moscow, 1956 Yagub Mammadov, Diplomatic Relations Between the Ak Koyunlu and Safavid States and European Countries, Baku, 1994 Elizabeth Anne McCauley (ed.), Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle, Boston, 2004 Various Authors, Travellers on Azerbaijan, Baku, 1961

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (1972), trans. by William Weaver, London, 1997 Evliya Chelebi, The Book of Travels (Third Edition), Moscow, 1983 Fuzūli, Leylā and Mejnūn (1535), trans. by Sofi Hori, London, 1970 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, trans. by Anna Swanwick, Boston, 1884 Mirza Ibrahimov (ed.), Azerbaijani Poetry, Moscow, 1971 Henry James, Italian Hours, New York, 1909 Henry James, Letters from the Palazzo Barbaro, ed. by Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, London, 1998

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Credits

Published in 2015 on the occasion of the exhibition The Union of Fire and Water Collateral Event of the 56 th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 9 th May–22 nd November 2015 www.bakuvenice2015.com 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.

Exhibition Commissioner: YARAT Contemporary Art Space Curator: Suad Garayeva Exhibition Design: Exhibit A, London Graphic Design: A Plus B Studio, London Sound: German Popov Supported by: Gilan Holding Coordinator in Venice: PDG Arte Communications

Catalogue Editor: Suad Garayeva Copy Editors: Graham Erickson and Benjamin Jones Design: A Plus B Studio, London Print: Grafiche Leone, Italy Photography: Rauf Askyarov and Fakhriyya Mammadova Images © of the artist (except where indicated) Text © of the authors (except where indicated) For the book in this form © YARAT Contemporary Art Space

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