The Venice Biennale has established itself as an event that sets a new tone for art, as a sacred ritual that renews the life of art every two years. By reflecting the innovative ideas and anxieties of our turbulent time, artistic practices offer us the opportunity to reconsider outdated narratives from a completely unexpected position. One such striking example is Kazakhstan’s pavilion, which unfolds a story around the ancient legend of Jerūiyq, the Promised Land where time stood still, giving eternal life and people’s souls and thoughts filled with pure radiance.
The Republic of Kazakhstan has a remarkable geography, sandwiched between two giants, Russia and China: imagine how much effort is needed both to establish an identity and to be able to communicate it. As a state, it has been independent since 1991, but its history begins at the dawn of time. It is from this mixture of dreams and roots that he shows Jerūiyq: A Look Beyond the Horizon was born In the Kazajo pavilion, this dichotomy is skilfully reconciled: the past and the future are intertwined, the story of an ancient nation is told and, at the same time, the aspirations of a very young nation with a rich history are demonstrated.
The work of some artists is particularly striking. Yerbolat Tolepbay’s transcendental large-scale painting immerses the viewer in the journey of the New Boywhich the artist created in 2023-24 as a reference to his very strong work presented in the pavilion, Late Time (“The End of the World”, 1985). Faced with geopolitical battles, new military conflicts or the Covid-19 pandemic, many have thought at least once about the end of the world. But how can we move away from our linear perception of history and look at time through the eyes of the heirs of a nomadic civilization? The artist finds a way to present this state of tension in two sharp forms that face each other, opening a portal to an image of hope for a new generation, as if sending the viewer to hyperspace, to other worlds where humanity may still have a chance .
Frame from Anvar Musrepov’s video essay Undress (2024)
Sergey Maslov, who died in 2002 at the age of 50, was a visionary artist, misunderstood and a source of fascination for his life on the edge. He was drawn to spiritualism and black magic, and skillfully created fake news about himself that shocked society while fueling the myth: from a fake suicide to an imaginary relationship with Whitney Houston.
Maslov had a great influence on contemporary art in Kazakhstan and was a source of inspiration for many generations, and echoes of him can also be seen in the powerful video. Undress, by the young Anvar Musrepov, a piece that transports us to a distant future where even the sun has died out and the people who survived the apocalypse live in tribes and practice ancestral rituals. One can feel a dialogue with that of Tolepbay Late Time here: a fascinating vision of time as something circular and of history being rewritten, returning to its origins and erasing the mistakes made over the centuries.
By definition, the Biennale is a temple of modernity, and it is here that the legend Jerūiyq presents itself, nothing less than a metaphor that breaks our models of life and imagines an alternative future from the perspective of Kazakh artists.
- Jerūiyq: Journey beyond the horizonKazakhstan Pavilion, Venice Naval History Museum, Riva S. Biasio Castello, 2148, 30122. Until October 24.
