Where is Modern Art History?

Supported by the Getty Foundation, Building the Field of Modern Art History in Central Asia research seminars brings together established and emerging scholars, curators, and artists to collectively examine the region’s modern and contemporary art. 

The inaugural seminar, ‘Where is Art History?’, hosted by Almaty Museum of Arts, will investigate institutional, independent, and informal approaches to researching and teaching art history in Central Asia. It raises key questions: Where and for whom is art history written, taught, and circulated? Closed sessions will connect Kazakhstani museums, independent research collectives, and university students in an active exchange of perspectives.

Programme Schedule

November 13

18:00-19:00

The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art Beyond Solidarity

Joan Kee in conversation with Inga Lāce

What if art history reframed itself around global majorities so that more of the world could be seen rather than less? To speak of a global majority—a term that has moved through decolonization struggles since the 1950s—is to acknowledge that most of the world has been sidelined by systems that mistake their own limitations for universal relevance.

This talk explores 'Afro Asia' not as a fixed geography joining Africa and Asia or even as a postwar effort at building postcolonial solidarity but as a method of navigation. Rather than a map that abstracts the world from a single stationary point, this approach moves between artworks as a navigator moves between islands, constantly recalibrating position in response to changing currents.

Through five geometries—transversality, angles of incidence, adjacency, coincidence, and topology—we trace unexpected circuits: Si-Lan Chen traveling from Trinidad via China to Tashkent in 1933, Mozambican students forging solidarities in Soviet art schools, Paul Robeson's bust on a Tian Shan peak. These aren't footnotes but evidence of how the global majority has always created its own circuits of recognition.

19:00-19:30

Building the Field of Modern Art History in Central Asia – presentation of the project and Getty’s Connecting Art Histories initiative

November 14

17:00-18:15

Revisiting Histories of Central Asian Art

Nigora Akhmedova, Aïda Adilbek, Guzel Zakir and Georgy Mamedov

This short panel presents different perspectives on the region’s problematics of Art history and Art theory based on speakers’ personal scientific and artistic practices.
Nigora Akhmedova will delve into the overall thematics in the timeline of 20th-21st centuries’ Art history of Central Asia and the impact of the State’s ideology on them. Aïda Adilbek will talk about the language of Contemporary Art history in Kazakhstan and its exclusionary characteristics. Guzel Zakir will speak about her latest exhibition, QIZIL TAN, which is based on research into Soviet Uyghur print and book culture, as well as the creative movement of Uyghur artists from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Georgy Mamedov examines the emergence of contemporary art in Central Asia during the so-called ‘End of History’, a moment that temporarily rendered tradition and history obsolete. He argues for a stronger integration of art history into broader historical scholarship of the 20th and 21st centuries and considers it as a form of public history, illustrated through Uzbek artist Shamsroy Khasanova’s (1917–1956) portraits of Central Asian poetesses of the 18th-19th centuries.

18:25-19:35

Female Art Practices in Central Asia: on systemic issues of cultural production

Alima Tokmergenova, Diana Ukhina, Rahraw Omarzad, Dilda Ramazan

In this presentation, we will address the different cultural and political paradigms in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan in which female art practices emerged in the 20th century and continue to emerge today. The systemic issues of female cultural production will be considered.

19:35-20:30

Archiving Art in Central Asia

Aleksei Rumyantsev, Yuliya Sorokina, Alexey Ulko

The group will focus on the problems and challenges of existing archival resources in various forms, including artists’ archives, online archives, and publications from the Central Asian region, as well as new approaches to artists’ engagement with memory and history. Having repeatedly collaborated on the documentation of artistic events, the group members have developed a clear vision and proposal for renewing archival processes. Their presentation will be structured around three main areas: the general framework of the group’s archival interactions and the actualisation of problems in existing archives (presented by Sorokina); archival publications (by Sorokina and Ulko); and models of artistic collaboration as an archive (by Ulko and Rumyantsev).

Participants (alphabetically):

Aïda Adilbek (artist, curator; Akzhar, Kazakhstan), Aleksei Rumyantsev  artist, art activist and researcher; Dushanbe, Tajikistan), Alexey Ulko (art critic, filmmaker; Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Alima Tokmergenova (cultural researcher; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), Diana Ukhina (cultural researcher, curator, artist; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), Dilda Ramazan (curator, PhD candidate; Almaty, Kazakhstan – Paris, France), Georgy Mamedov (curator, writer, activist, PhD student; Melbourne, Australia), Guzel Zakir (artist, curator; Almaty, Kazakhstan), Nigora Akhmedova (associate professor, curator, PhD in Art History; Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Rahraw Omarzad (artist, writer, educator; Kabul, Afghanistan – in exile in Frankfurt, Germany), Yuliya Sorokina (associate professor, curator, PhD in Art Sciences; Almaty, Kazakhstan)

Organizers:

Joan Kee (director and professor, NYU's Institute of Fine Arts; New York, USA), Inga Lāce (chief curator, Almaty Museum of Arts; Almaty, Kazakhstan), Anel Rakhimzhanova (researcher, PhD candidate; Almaty, Kazakhstan – New York, USA)