The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Erbossyn Meldibekov explores the complex history, geography and condition of Central Asia and the Caucasus, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. With the fall of Communism, the region was reshaped, with the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan gaining independence. Meldibekov’s work describes the legacy of these geopolitical transformations and the region’s unique mix of ethnic, postcolonial, Islamic and Soviet influences. It draws attention to competing political powers and differences which reveal ongoing disputes over borders and territories, belligerent ideologues and xenophobia, and the social effects of the transition from socialism to capitalism. In the photographic installation Family album 2011 — made in collaboration with his brother Nurbossyn Oris — Meldibekov uncovers a ritual characteristic of Kazakh society, as well as the pervasiveness of state symbols before and after Soviet rule. Meldibekov juxtaposes archival photographs of family and friends in front of official buildings, memorials and monuments with photographs that have been restaged at the same sites decades later. These public professions of loyalty were regarded as a Soviet tradition, said to guarantee prosperity for families, and while these monuments have largely disappeared from the landscape of contemporary Kazakhstan, the tradition of paying homage to state symbols remains. Family album evokes a sense of nostalgia for Soviet iconoclasm, as well as pointing to the unchanging nature of monumentality in post-communist Kazakhstan. The project was inspired by Meldibekov’s realisation that, in the Alisher Navoi National Park, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, successive memorials have been installed proclaiming contradictory messages. As Meldibekov notes: . . . there’s a monument in Uzbekistan that was changed 11 times in 90 years. At first, in 1912, it was Governor-General [Konstantin von] Kaufman, but in 1917, the Bolsheviks replaced him with a red flag, calling it ‘Monument to Revolution’. Then it was Stalin, Karl Marx and Amir Temur. 1 As in other locations throughout the region, former Soviet leaders have been replaced with local heroes — a succession reflecting the shifting nature and value attributed to symbols of cultural identity and statehood. Curator Valeria Ibrayeva has argued these changes are characterised by a re-emphasis of historical–mythological heroes that symbolically relate to the region’s struggle for independence: . . . the history of the region was rewritten every 20 years from the bottom up, starting with Turkistan as a province of the Russian Empire, moving on to the triumph of Leninism and Stalinism and finally to independence symbolised by the figure of Tamerlane. 2 In Seasons in the Hindu Kush – Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter 2009–11, Meldibekov repurposes four Soviet-era cooking pots to create alternative views of the great mountain system of Central Asia, which stretches between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meldibekov’s choice of objects — luxurious items during Soviet rule, which are equally valuable in contemporary times due to their rarity — embodies an aspect of the everyday imbued with a potent significance. Battered and crushed, these cooking pots represent the topography of the Hindu Kush Mountains — summits and ridges result from the embossed surfaces’ splinters and damage. The hard material bears the traces of a powerful force, making the object appear more like an improvised helmet, implying an unending manifestation of violence. The mountainous setting inspiring the work remains a site of military and social significance that, in name alone, carries violent overtones ( kush stems from the Persian verb kushtan , meaning to kill or commit carnage). Historically, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and his descendant Babur, all used the mountain passes as buffer zones and frontiers for battle. During the Cold War, it was considered a dividing point between the Soviet and British rule of Afghanistan, as well as in the era post September 11; the area was also an important location for the United States’ militarised campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Curator Sara Raza has noted that some 80 per cent of the West’s heroin is also derived from the region, suggesting Meldibekov indirectly familiarises ‘the viewer with the narcotics trade that has caused Russia, as well as Iran, to grapple with one of the world’s highest growths in addiction, HIV and AIDS’. 3 In a recent interview, Meldibekov described how, as a radio engineer for the Soviet Armed Forces during the 1979–89 war in Afghanistan, he ‘acquired a lot of information concealed from the majority of Soviet citizens, and began to understand the mechanisms by which individuals, countries and people can be manipulated’. 4 It is this sense of malleability of both ideology and behaviour that underwrites Erbossyn Meldibekov’s work. His battered pots and the indifference of locals towards symbols of power suggest portents for a region still grappling with a crisis in identity, following the fall of Communism. José Da Silva 1 Erbossyn Meldibekov, cited in Irina Markarova ‘When monuments become myth’, ArtAsiaPacific , issue 68, May–June, 2010, p.70. Amir Timur is historically known as Tamerlane, as cited elsewhere in this essay. 2 Valeria Ibrayeva, 1989–2009: Turbulent World: Telling Time [exhibition catalogue], Goethe-Institut, Berlin, 2009, see catalogue essay <www.goethe.de/ins/ru/lp/prj/bew/kue/mel/en4773400.htm >, viewed 7 August 2012. 3 Sara Raza, ‘The (dis)order of things’, in Erbossyn Meldibekov: The (Dis) order of Things [exhibition catalogue], Rossi & Rossi, London, 2009, p.7. 4 Erbossyn Meldibekov, in conversation with Valeria Ibrayeva, in Erbossyn Meldibekov: The (Dis)order of Things , p.31. ERBOSSYN MELDIBEKOV Of monuments and mountains 241