Pol Pot is an early photo series by Yerbossyn Meldibekov. Named after the infamous Cambodian political leader, it is devoted to the archaizing of contemporaneity as a result of a failed modernization. The artist demonstrates openly and roughly fragments of human bodies and of animal carcasses that have been laid out on the ground in a specific design. Stones and stakes thrust into the ground are frequently used in the compositions – the artist treats such spatial objects as equivalent to parts of human bodies.

In "Gattamelata in the Hide of Genghis Khan", the artist creates a monument to the hero, leaving only horse hooves on a pedestal. The viewer himself imagines the "missing".

My Brother – My Enemy was addressed to the universal celebration that was a typical features of the noughties, when leaders of the newly-created Central Asian states frequently met, organized splendid parties, sometimes even linked their families. They used to recall their shared Great Turkic roots. Meldibekov puts forward his own version of fraternal relations. The composition consists of two characters, with hair arranged in a style common among Turks in the Middle Ages. One of them is the creator of the artwork. They threaten each other with pistols that appear to grow out of their mouths. The artist fantasizes – history could develop in a different way, forgotten or discarded plots could return from the archive and again become threateningly relevant.

The image of a man in skull cap, a role always played by Yerbossyn Meldibekov himself, first appeared in his creative work in 2001, in the video Pastan. In it, the character humbly endured beatings and verbal abuse, showing himself as a metaphor for the subject of post-totalitarian, post-reformist, neo-authoritarian social conditions. Subsequently the artist regularly returns to this image: he develops it thematically and makes it more specific.

The series of bronze sculptures deals with the phenomenon of labor migration, migration and emigration of people from Central Asian countries. To the casts from faces of the “gastarbeiter”, the artist invariably adds a cast of his own face. The initial series of artworks consisted of precise casts of faces of real people who worked, for the most part, in Russia. As the conditions of the migrants’ existence become harsher, and the phenomenon of migration and emigration becomes criminalized, Meldibekov deforms the faces of the heroes of his artworks, imparts them grimaces of pain and suffering.

In "Mutations", Yerbossyn Meldibekov subjects to slight deformations a mass-produced bust of Lenin. Thus, if the bust is squeezed from above, Lenin turns into Genghis Khan, if stretched vertically, it becomes similar to Giacometti (the artist uses the same technique in his work “Brezhnev-Giacometti (2015)), if you add a little volume to the lips, Lenin turns into Patrice Lumumba. Using a wooden hammer, Meldibekov distorts the original form of the ideological sculpture, ceaselessly creates new heroes, “hammering out” the original ideological content from the conventional image.The artist considered it important to apply the same procedure with respect to the image of another Soviet leader–Leonid Brezhnev.

One day Yerbossyn Meldibekov came across the hide of a butchered horse with pieces of meat and fat still attached. Its appearance bore an uncanny resemblance to the topographical map of Central Asia. At about the same time the artist made yet another unexpected discovery: the map of Genghis Khan’s empire was strikingly similar to that of the Soviet empire. The artwork that resulted from these insights was dedicated to the famous Bathing a Red Horse by Kuz’ma Petrov-Vodkin. The Russian artist had created his painting as a symbol of the coming revolution and the hopes for the future then attached to it. Meldibekov’s horse, however, is seen to be cut up, and on its hide, turned inside out, glimmers the ancient map of Genghis Khan.

The custom of Soviet people to be photographed against the background of ideological monuments remained after the fall of the Soviet Union. Yerbossyn Meldibekov made it an object of his investigation, with his own family taken as example. The protagonists of the artist’s family photographic chronicle are his closest relatives, whose pictures had been taken in the same location but at twenty-thirty year intervals. In the first case, a monument to Communist heroes served as background, while in the second – the consequences of a hurried disposal of images of the past. The altered landscapes turn out to be the main protagonists of the photo work, while the family chronicle is seen as a chronicle of a historic break.

In this work Yerbossyn Meldibekov brings together traditional and, at the same time, most banal objects of Central Asian handicrafts. These are a wooden brush with metallic bristles, as usual, handworked, which is intended for cleaning sheet metal, and naturally, a carpet – a famous handworked (once again) brand of the region. These two objects are brought together quite literally: be they woolen or linen, cotton or silk, the threads of this carpet are replaced by one million fifty-eight thousand four hundred metallic bristles, one of which is cast from gold. Meldibekov’s authorial utterance, born out of this labor-intensive operation, is aimed at the production of culture in Central Asia. According to the artist, such production constantly exploits the tradition of the past and claims that its results are unique, but there well-founded doubts about the real value of the product.

In the work "Allergy", another video of the cycle of video performances, Meldibekov, in the familiar image of a citizen of -stan countries, sneezes to tears.

In 1997, Rustam Khalfin created an artwork, The Birth of the Saddle. It was based on a performance involving the artist’s friend, the philosopher Zhanat Baimukhametov. In accordance with Khalfin’s conception, Baimukhametov sat down nude on a mass of clay that had been stuck like a saddle on the croup of a horse. The resulting cast, according to the artist, was an “ideal saddle”, while the artwork itself embodied the notion of original creation and the tactile perception of the world, both of which are intrinsic to nomad culture. Eighteen years later, Yerbossyn Meldibekov memorialized the deceased classic of modern Kazakh art by repeating his performance and once again inviting Zhanat Baimukhametov to take part in it.

In the artwork Communism Peak Yerbossyn Meldibekov studies the sequence of renamings of one of the mountain peaks in the Pamir range, linking it to the history of disappearance of grand ideas and global projects. The former “Communism Peak” – the highest mountain peak in the former Soviet Union and today’s Central Asia – has been renamed six times over the past 130 years. The Kyrgyz who used to roam these regions called the mountain Uz-Tergi or Muz-Too, while the Tajiks who lived in the foothills called it Garmo. During the 1930s the name “Garmo Peak” was changed to “Stalin Peak”, and after Stalin’s death the summit of the mountain was called “Communism Peak”. Even though the regime fell apart, Communist inertia resulted in yet another “mountainous rebranding” – the mountain was given the name of Ismoil Somoni. For Gletschermusik festival organized by the Goethe-Institut Yerbossyn Meldibekov created a new interpretation of the work using washing basins produced in a factory in Karaganda in the north of Kazakhstan and placed them in Almaty's famous spa complex Arasan, creating parallels between the physical act of washing and erasing of historical memory.

The artist compresses into a single day the hundred-year long history of renaming the 7000-meter high Lenin Peak (also known as Kaufman Peak and the Abu Ali Ibn Sina Peak), which is situated on the border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Thus, the morning sun illuminates Kaufman Peak, the highest point in the Russian Empire. Noon comes to the Soviet Lenin Peak. For inhabitants of Tajikistan, the twilight at sunset glimmers on the Abu Ali Ibn Sina Peak, while for people in Kyrgyzstan the same rays of the sun play on what is still known as Lenin Peak, though no longer Soviet.

During the last 60 years, Afghanistan has lived through nearly all possible systems of state structure – like the change of seasons of the year in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Winter, spring, summer, fall – the monarchy, Mohammed Daoud’s republic, the Communist military dictatorship, the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the American military authorities... The kaleidoscope of these historical changes determined the formal solution of the group installation Seasons in the Hindu Kush – multicolored enameled pots with bottoms beaten outwards so as to resemble mountain peaks – the visual historical line of Afghanistan. Each season of the year is matched by pots and pans in a particular color: thus, spring and summer are represented by pots in shades of green, fall – in orange color, winter – in all-white cookware.

During the last 60 years, Afghanistan has lived through nearly all possible systems of state structure – like the change of seasons of the year in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Winter, spring, summer, fall – the monarchy, Mohammed Daoud’s republic, the Communist military dictatorship, the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the American military authorities... The kaleidoscope of these historical changes determined the formal solution of the group installation Seasons in the Hindu Kush – multicolored enameled pots with bottoms beaten outwards so as to resemble mountain peaks – the visual historical line of Afghanistan. Each season of the year is matched by pots and pans in a particular color: thus, spring and summer are represented by pots in shades of green, fall – in orange color, winter – in all-white cookware.

During the last 60 years, Afghanistan has lived through nearly all possible systems of state structure – like the change of seasons of the year in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Winter, spring, summer, fall – the monarchy, Mohammed Daoud’s republic, the Communist military dictatorship, the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the American military authorities... The kaleidoscope of these historical changes determined the formal solution of the group installation Seasons in the Hindu Kush – multicolored enameled pots with bottoms beaten outwards so as to resemble mountain peaks – the visual historical line of Afghanistan. Each season of the year is matched by pots and pans in a particular color: thus, spring and summer are represented by pots in shades of green, fall – in orange color, winter – in all-white cookware.

A portion of the photographs Meldibekov uses was taken during the period of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Because Soviet photo equipment was not of high quality, it produced images that are blurred, as if in a haze. It turns out that with the introduction of the Soviet army Afghanistan seemed to be plunged into fog, which cleared following the end of the war and turned into the toxic colors of Kodak film... Thus, in this work Afghanistan is presented as a territory of unresolvable conflicts, similar, in the artist’s opinion, to the neighboring former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

A portion of the photographs Meldibekov uses was taken during the period of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Because Soviet photo equipment was not of high quality, it produced images that are blurred, as if in a haze. It turns out that with the introduction of the Soviet army Afghanistan seemed to be plunged into fog, which cleared following the end of the war and turned into the toxic colors of Kodak film... Thus, in this work Afghanistan is presented as a territory of unresolvable conflicts, similar, in the artist’s opinion, to the neighboring former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

During the Soviet period, a tunnel was built in Afghanistan in the area of the Salang Pass, which gave the name to the grand project. The tunnel connected the Southern and Northern regions of Afghanistan, separated by a chain of mountain ranges. Different versions of Yerbossyn Meldibekov’s installation Salang Pass were created from fragments of bowls, baths, shower trays, where the tunnel is designated by a sewage hole. The artist reminds us of the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Afghan war and the subsequent downfall of a most powerful state as a result of this war. For Yerbossyn, the Salang Tunnel is a black hole which sucked in the Communist Empire. Soviet military equipment worth many billions of dollars disappeared in Afghanistan, as if all the waste products disappeared through a sewage hole, taking with it an enormous exhausted country.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. All ten projects-winners of their times have been arranged by Yerbossyn Meldibekov into an endless contest lasting more than a hundred years. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

On the territory of the modern Amir Timur Square in Tashkent, which is no more than 200 square meters in size, during a hundred year period ten monuments replaced one another. The endless changes of political paradigms in Central Asia – from colonial-imperial and Communist to nationalist ones from the period of independence – also were reflected in the stylistic forms of these monuments with their constant mimicry. Significantly, the plinth of the 1913 monument to Konstantin von Kaufman, Governor-General of Turkestan, was reused for the four succeeding Communist monuments. The reasons – a solidly built granite structure, as well as, it appears, the fact that the post-Revolution authorities did not have a clear conception of the kind of monumental image they required. As a result, the Imperial monument to von Kaufman was succeeded by: “Monument to the Fighters for the Revolution” – a revolutionary banner surrounded by captured cannon; “Hammer and Sickle”, executed in the then-fashionable Constructivist style; a column with a dome and the inscription “October – Lighthouse of World Revolution. 1917-1927”; and, finally, a propagandistic installation with a bust of Vladimir Lenin and the slogan “Five-Year Plan in 4 Years!”. Only towards the end of the 1940s a new granite plinth was made specially for a monument to Joseph Stalin. Yerbossyn Meldibekov has turned the plinth into a modular construction toy with easily replaceable ends in the shape of monuments.

In this series of bronze busts-self-portraits Yerbossyn Meldibekov depicts himself in the images of actual heroes of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The artist was inspired to create this work by his memories: during his childhood and youth, he dreamed of being like Batyr Bala Bolatbek and Gani Muratbayev, Saken Seifullin and Tokash Bokin, Sabit Mukanov and Dzhambul Dzhabaev. He embodied these dreams in busts displayed in order of increasing age: from the youngest, Batyr Bala Bolatbek and Gani Muratbayev, to those representatives of the Kazakh “Stalinist” intelligentsia who, by compromising with the authorities and their conscience, succeeded in living to a ripe old age – Dzhambul Dzhabaev, Sabit Mukanov.

The practice of marking domestic cattle, which appeared in antiquity among the nomadic peoples of Central Asia, was modernized during the Soviet era. Instead of clan signs-coats of arms, burn scars were made in the shape of numbers similar to the number tattoos of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Such markings on animals continue into the present. In the artwork Brand, Yerbossyn Meldibekov gathered fragments of hides with numeric stamps and arranged them in an ordered sequence, starting with the lowest number. We have before us the statistics of the violence that has been brought by modern civilization.

Yerbossyn Meldibekov created the first cast of his face on his birthday in 1992. It was a sculptural exercise that did not presuppose any kind of creative development. He made the second cast many years later – not as an independent work, but as a fragment of a sculptural composition. However, because the cast was once again, by chance, produced on the date when the model for it had been born, the artist came up with the idea to regularly, on his birthday, make a representation of his own face. Meldibekov began to implement this plan only a few years ago. The series of bronze self-portraits follows actual chronology – both the chronology of their creation, and the artist’s biography. The line of the exhibit becomes the line of time.

After socialist realism was proclaimed the official artistic doctrine in the USSR, the avantgarde tradition was pushed out to the periphery, that is, it continued to exist as something auxiliary and in some case camouflaged. The Lenin monument erected in Tashkent during the 1930s is an example. This typical monument to the Soviet leader was placed upon a plinth, in which one can see clear echoes of Constructivist poetics. Yet another example – the Fathers of the Nation complex in Bishkek, where the plinth was in the shape of a complex plastic composition, a kind of “Constructivist tree”, on the “branches” of which were placed the historical heroes of Kyrgyzstan. Now the bronze monuments have been dismantled, and the inherent expressiveness of the plinth’s crystalline form is displayed in full. Small scale models of these two Neo-Constructivist plinths illustrate the fate of the avantgarde in Central Asia. As Yerbossyn Meldibekov sees it, the avantgarde in Central Asia is like phantom pain, an object summoned during a spiritualist séance, or a criminally aborted fetus.

After socialist realism was proclaimed the official artistic doctrine in the USSR, the avantgarde tradition was pushed out to the periphery, that is, it continued to exist as something auxiliary and in some case camouflaged. The Lenin monument erected in Tashkent during the 1930s is an example. This typical monument to the Soviet leader was placed upon a plinth, in which one can see clear echoes of Constructivist poetics. Yet another example – the Fathers of the Nation complex in Bishkek, where the plinth was in the shape of a complex plastic composition, a kind of “Constructivist tree”, on the “branches” of which were placed the historical heroes of Kyrgyzstan. Now the bronze monuments have been dismantled, and the inherent expressiveness of the plinth’s crystalline form is displayed in full. Small scale models of these two Neo-Constructivist plinths illustrate the fate of the avantgarde in Central Asia. As Yerbossyn Meldibekov sees it, the avantgarde in Central Asia is like phantom pain, an object summoned during a spiritualist séance, or a criminally aborted fetus.

In Game Meldibekov continues to reflect on the history of Central Asia on the basis of the history of Afghanistan, the history of changes in the design of the Afghan flag. The image of Afghan history created by the artist is presented as a modified toy, a Rubik’s cube puzzle, but with color combinations of the Afghan flag from various eras. On each small square surface the name of a specific color has been inscribed in Braille. Braille writing is also a metaphor for blindness, for the lack of vision of perspectives or an ordered plan for development, and – more broadly – it is a metaphor for history as a plaything of the blind.

The Pedestal tells a story of a statue plinth originally built for a monumental sculpture of the world proletariat leader Vladimir Lenin and installed in 1984 on the central square of Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. After each revolution, the victorious regimes replaced the sculptures on the pedestal because of the changing ideology. This pedestal has experienced three such amendments in total. Each new sculpture installed on the pedestal became grander and more pompous. The pedestal underwent changes, as well. After each revolution it grew taller and wider, expanded both horizontally and vertically. The second monument, erected on this pedestal, was called Liberty Monument. It was erected following Gorbachev’s Perestroika and the fall of the iron curtain at the time when the new independent state of Kyrgyzstan was emerging. Liberty Monument consisted of a sculpture depicting a woman who symbolized Kyrgyzstan’s freedom from the Communist dictatorship of Moscow. Liberty Monument stood in the centre of the Kyrgyz capital for 12 years. After the second Tulip Revolution of 2011, the female sculpture was replaced by a 17.5-meters bronze equestrian figure of the hero of the Kyrgyz epic Manas. After the Tulip revolution, the country’s new leaders decided that the woman from the Liberty Monument resembled Mayram Akayeva – the wife of the first President of Kyrgyzstan who was ousted by the revolution. Thus the new revolutionaries replaced the Liberty Monument. For them the new majestic monument of Manas is a representation of the unity of the Kyrgyz people. This process of constant change of sculptures on the main square of Kyrgyz capital is a reflection of the situation in the Kyrgyz society. It can be considered as a barometer of the political climate in this Central Asian Republic.

The Pedestal tells a story of a statue plinth originally built for a monumental sculpture of the world proletariat leader Vladimir Lenin and installed in 1984 on the central square of Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. After each revolution, the victorious regimes replaced the sculptures on the pedestal because of the changing ideology. This pedestal has experienced three such amendments in total. Each new sculpture installed on the pedestal became grander and more pompous. The pedestal underwent changes, as well. After each revolution it grew taller and wider, expanded both horizontally and vertically. The second monument, erected on this pedestal, was called Liberty Monument. It was erected following Gorbachev’s Perestroika and the fall of the iron curtain at the time when the new independent state of Kyrgyzstan was emerging. Liberty Monument consisted of a sculpture depicting a woman who symbolized Kyrgyzstan’s freedom from the Communist dictatorship of Moscow. Liberty Monument stood in the centre of the Kyrgyz capital for 12 years. After the second Tulip Revolution of 2011, the female sculpture was replaced by a 17.5-meters bronze equestrian figure of the hero of the Kyrgyz epic Manas. After the Tulip revolution, the country’s new leaders decided that the woman from the Liberty Monument resembled Mayram Akayeva – the wife of the first President of Kyrgyzstan who was ousted by the revolution. Thus the new revolutionaries replaced the Liberty Monument. For them the new majestic monument of Manas is a representation of the unity of the Kyrgyz people. This process of constant change of sculptures on the main square of Kyrgyz capital is a reflection of the situation in the Kyrgyz society. It can be considered as a barometer of the political climate in this Central Asian Republic.

The Pedestal tells a story of a statue plinth originally built for a monumental sculpture of the world proletariat leader Vladimir Lenin and installed in 1984 on the central square of Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. After each revolution, the victorious regimes replaced the sculptures on the pedestal because of the changing ideology. This pedestal has experienced three such amendments in total. Each new sculpture installed on the pedestal became grander and more pompous. The pedestal underwent changes, as well. After each revolution it grew taller and wider, expanded both horizontally and vertically. The second monument, erected on this pedestal, was called Liberty Monument. It was erected following Gorbachev’s Perestroika and the fall of the iron curtain at the time when the new independent state of Kyrgyzstan was emerging. Liberty Monument consisted of a sculpture depicting a woman who symbolized Kyrgyzstan’s freedom from the Communist dictatorship of Moscow. Liberty Monument stood in the centre of the Kyrgyz capital for 12 years. After the second Tulip Revolution of 2011, the female sculpture was replaced by a 17.5-meters bronze equestrian figure of the hero of the Kyrgyz epic Manas. After the Tulip revolution, the country’s new leaders decided that the woman from the Liberty Monument resembled Mayram Akayeva – the wife of the first President of Kyrgyzstan who was ousted by the revolution. Thus the new revolutionaries replaced the Liberty Monument. For them the new majestic monument of Manas is a representation of the unity of the Kyrgyz people. This process of constant change of sculptures on the main square of Kyrgyz capital is a reflection of the situation in the Kyrgyz society. It can be considered as a barometer of the political climate in this Central Asian Republic.