Bakhyt Bubikanova

Aspan Gallery is pleased to announce a solo show of the most prominent figures of the younger generation of Kazakh artists - Bakhyt Bubikanova.

Bakhyt Bubikanova works using a variety of techniques including painting, collage, installation, performance, photography and video art, and her new exhibition includes the artist's painting, installation, video, and a series of performances that will open the exhibition by the artist and the curator of the show Marat Raiymkulov.

“The exposition of the exhibition “Centuries Bow to the Talent… Or How not to Become Hitler” is a drama of two spaces, with a theatrical, visual and emotional tension between. The two spaces seem to be a metaphor for the two sides of a mask, or even a skin in the form of a mask. One surface is turned outside to the world - to the viewer, interlocutor, witness. The inner surface represents an inner journey, opposed to the outer surface, but it is not at all a priority and hidden secret, but on the contrary, in the process of transformation, the inner surface takes the place of the outer, etc. It's a looped, ongoing process of forever shedding skin.”

Marat Raiymkulov

About the artist

Bakhyt Bubikanova (1985, Aktobe). Notable recent exhibitions include Eurasian Utopia: Post Scriptum at the Suwon I’Park Museum of Art in Suwon (2018), Suns and Neons above Kazakhstan at the Yarat in Baku (2017), La vie est une légende e.cité – Almaty/Kazakhstan at the Museé d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Strasbourg (2014), the 4^th International Biennale for Young Art in Moscow (2014) and Face of the Bride at the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art in Perm (2012).

About the curator

Marat Raiymkulov (1984, Bishkek). Marat Raiymkulov is one of the founders of the Bishkek art collective 705, which brought its modern theatrical productions to Almaty. Raiymkulov creates graphic illustrations and monumental paintings, in which fantastical characters and stories, based on everyday life, become their own kind of ornament. His work forces us to think of our lives as if it was a continuous ornament, in which different elements change, reincarnate, pass into one another, while often becoming completely absurd. Raiymkulov’s work has been presented in Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Switzerland, UAE, USA, and in Italy, included in the Central Asian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011.

Exhibition dates: 4 December 2021 – 31 January 2022

Saturday 4 December | Performance | 6pm - 7pm*

DJ set and welcome drinks | 7pm - 9pm*

Sunday 5 December | curator-led tour of the exhibition | 12pm*

* All our events are free but registration is required: exhibition opening registration link

curator-led tour registration link

Opening hours:

Tue-Sat: 11 am - 7 pm

Sun: 12 pm - 6 pm

Address: Villa Boutiques & Restaurants, 140A/3 Al Farabi, lower ground floor, Almaty. Free entrance.