«The Dream Catcher»

Aspan Gallery is pleased to present Sergey Maslov's solo show - The Dream Catcher, curated by Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev.

Sergey Maslov is one of the founders of contemporary art in Kazakhstan, he worked with a variety of media including painting, performance, installation, video and text. Maslov was called - "mystical bloodsucker", "erotomaniac", "madman", "maniac". According to Elena Vorobyeva, one could really believe it (he sometimes believed it himself), if one did not see intellectual layers, all-consuming irony and almost childish innocence in his works. He said that he knew how to distinguish art from life, and skillfully did so, creating a "playing field" around himself. This field was his living space, his air.

The exhibition, which we entitled The Dream Catcher, is another attempt for us to meet with Sergey Maslov, to summon him from the "heavenly spheres" to our not very cozy earth. It has been twenty years since his passing, he would have turned seventy if he was alive. How much more he would invent, created during this time, how much laughter would he bring, resentment and experiences... But we have only what he left and have no right to think of it as not enough.

Those who ever met Sergey can remember his voice, his demeanor - slightly aloof, with distrust, but always ready to join the conversation with childish excitement, as if it is a game, making up the development of the plot along the way, including real and fictional characters to this tale. Whoever did not know Maslov should take his word for it...

Sergey caught his dreams and trapped them on the surface of his paintings, and the ball comes to the player, by ball I mean us - his fans.

– Yelena Vorobyeva

The exhibition includes artist's installations, paintings, drawings. Among them are Baikonur-2, My Whitney, Survival Instructions for the Citizens of the Former USSR.

About the artist

Sergey Maslov was born in 1952 in Samara, Russia. He lived and worked in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Maslov was a subject of numerous personal exhibitions, including Astral Nomad at the National Museum in Astana (2017), Maslov i K at Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts in Bishkek (2004), Sergey Maslov. East is a Subtle Thing to Understand at Stuttgarter Kunstverein in Stuttgart (2002) and Maslov riadom s iskusstvom, okolo literaturi at A. Kasteev Museum of Arts in Almaty (1998). His works were also exhibited at such important group shows as Central Asia Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), Off the Silk Road: No Mad's Land: Contemporary Art from Central Asia at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2002), re-orientation: Kunst zu Mittelasien at ACC Gallery in Weimar (2002). Maslov’s paintings are in the collections of the A. Kasteev Museum of Arts, Almaty, East Kazakhstan Regional Nevzorovs’ Museum of Fine Arts, Semey, M HKA, Antwerp and Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick.

Exhibition dates: 1 March - 12 June 2022

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.