print November 2022

Askhat Akhmedyarov

“Umit” (Hope) was Askhat Akhmedyarov’s first solo exhibition in Almaty, although the artist has been active since 1999 and, as part of the art collective Kyzyl Tractor, even earlier. Umit was also the name of the artist’s grandmother, whose story inspired one of the four interconnected chapters of the show.

Located on the lawn just outside the gallery, The Century, 2022, twirls together red and white kese tea bowls and lyagan plates—traditional Central Asian pots—like an enlarged string of beads suspended in the air as a festive garland. The work reflects Umit’s ninety-three years, during which

print December 2021

Melike Kara

For her first show in Georgia, Cologne-based Kurdish German artist Melike Kara gathered new works—paintings, wall-mounted crocheted works, “knot sculptures” made from PLA filament, and a video—under the title “How She Shapes Us.” “She” is the Munzur River, which flows through the artist’s homeland—and, as if mirroring a river bend, the video Munzur (all works 2021) was projected on a curved white-brick wall in the staircase leading to the gallery’s second floor. Composed of three vertically oriented cell-phone recordings, the video follows from different angles the ceaseless flowing and swirling

print November 2021

Baltic Triennial 14

When it started in 1979, the Baltic Triennial featured mostly young artists from the Baltic republics of the Soviet Union; the event was expanded after the restoration of their independence to make global trends more visible in the region. This year, for the first time, the organizers focused their attention on contemporary and historical artistic practices in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Curated by Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia under the title “The Endless Frontier,” the triennial was a sensitive and kaleidoscopic mapping of common grounds and rifts within the region’s economic,

Inga Lāce