Central Asia Pavilion 53RD Venice Biennale: TEXTS ON CENTRAL ASIA ART AND CULTURE

GAMAL BOKONBAEV

Gamal Bokonbaev
The Epoch
Visual Culture: Cinema. Advertising. Painting. Contemporary art. Photo

Introduction

In the early 1990s, the breakup of the USSR has resulted in a new cultural space justifiably and ubiquitously dubbed post-Soviet. All Soviet republics, having achieved independent status, remain successors of the Soviet culture; and the artistic processes of the once-united Soviet Union are continuing in these countries. Ideological basis and tight connections of state structures have been destroyed but there were people that couldn’t have changed overnight. It is impossible in the twinkling of an eye to rebuild architecture, museums, and monuments; to ignore achievements of the Soviet art; forget the common history.

A new formation is not a homogenous mass. Having saved tight relationships with each other, the post-Soviet countries independently shape their own cultural policies. In this complex web of centripetal and centrifugal forces during such a short period of time, it’s way too early to come to any conclusions about new and completed phenomena. But Kyrgyzstan has possibly found itself in a unique situation.
On 24 March 2005, there was a change of power in Kyrgyzstan and it became a start of a new epoch. One can argue that it’s not the reason for periodization of cultural development of a sovereign state. But it’s hard to turn a blind eye to the fact that, apart from demarcating events, there was a transformation in mass consciousness and for Kyrgyzstan the Epoch was over – the Epoch of the First President. The history of the first period of an independent state is over, and it brings an opportunity for impartial assessment and candid interpretations that are always beneficial for further development. In the practice of global communication the meaning of visual images is growing: translated texts become brief being supplemented by vivid plastique. This general trend in our republic is accentuated: the culture of Kyrgyzstan is developing in the situation of bilingualism. And the peculiarity stems not only from greater usage of universal language of plastic arts but also from the increase of the significance of the visual in all spheres of life. Our common culture is the one of visual images, understandable without words, and this is what determines its most distinctive characteristics.
Visual culture in the modern world is a multifaceted complexity which includes many things ranging from traditional arts to the interfaces of computer videogames. Past Epoch is the total standardization of the visual environment. Advertising, street commerce, expansion of Chinese goods made in accordance with European templates blended the appearance of the country, clothing and utensils. The Internet introduced the notion of a single virtual space. The growing role of Islam is also influencing the appearance of the once-atheistic society. All these and many other less visible factors have formed the appearance we sense, perceive, and see. But it’s unlikely that all these can be considered peculiarities of the republic’s visual culture of a given period: many phenomena are the result of much more global processes, rather than events related to a particular Central Asian state. [1]
An inevitable process of blending, as a rule, bumps into resistance only in creative work. In the works of art, along with external changes, the ideal image of the country is being changed and one can see subconscious resistance to the imposed standards. Art is a sacred territory that makes possible creation of unique things understandable to the whole world but peculiar to our republic. It’s impossible to divide the types of visual arts into standardized and unique, but it’s possible to trace the trends towards uniqueness and it is these phenomena that can help find the characteristic of the time. First and foremost, it is an inspiring international success of the Kyrgyz cinematography as cinema of the author; successful development of the national version of postmodernism in painting; active civic position of a new phenomenon in our republic – «contemporary art» the fact of interpretation of video-advertising as an advertising of the country. [2]
Many factors affected development of the Epoch’s visual culture, but some of them were rather fundamental.
First of all, it is democratization of the processes in artistic environment. During the formation of cultural policies in Kyrgyzstan, the solutions were offered by both government and various civic organizations and informal institutions: the lack of ideological censorship brought about a wide range of suggestions. Official structures made their own decisions and were tolerant to all other versions. Any phenomenon is not a product of a single line of development; other trends, realizing the principle of a cultural diversity, enrich an officially accepted trend. [3]
Second, many important cultural projects became possible only because of successful adoption of non-state forms of funding. These sources are various international public foundations, private investments, and new practice of art sponsorship. During the last epoch, the county’s intelligentsia realized that the lack of the state support is not a reason to halt the cultural development.

Third, currently dominating simple and effective solution of the problem of identification is an association of the country’s image with ethnography. New authorities needed quick fix for its new face. Here they began searching outer features of originality in the patriarchal past. On the other hand, it did not rule out the artistic processing of a new reality, i.e., modern urban culture.
Only now, when most of the events became history and some phenomena have shaped, one can make some preliminary conclusions. But formation of the visual image of the epoch was a complex, ambiguous and hazy process. For their part, republican political and artistic elites attempted at stimulation of this process from the outside based on some theoretical schemes, rather than waiting for some natural «birth of an idea».

During the initial years of independence the president’s office was decorated by monumental paintings of Emil Toktaliev. The painter used images of the national heroic themes, found by him, in enlarged size and a story line (for instance, a motive of the «Sayakbay» painting). Over time, it became clear that those paintings do not mirror the spirit of the authorities that wanted to be clear and more accessible rather than heroic and mythological; and with all due respect to ethnography, more secular and Europeanized. The point of the story is in the fact that Emil Toktaliev’s talented works of art have set the highest artistic standard and did not allow letting it down below the certain level. And, possibly, blocked many other quests in this direction. It is symbolic that after 24th of March the new authorities never needed this «theatrical background, » hastily replacing the evidence of the first president’s epoch.

An interesting lesson has been learned from the exhibition with a declarative title «Akaev-2000» in 1997 (Evgeny Boikov, Gamal Bokonbaev, Erkin Saliev, Yuristanbek Shygaev). The painting exhibition was accompanied by fashionable objects and installations. There was a joint performance of the exhibition’s participants – collective creation of the portrait of the first country president, reflecting ambiguity, multifariousness of the politician. By the opening ceremony the group «published» twenty copies of «artistic-patriotic» magazine «All! » The exhibition suggested the whole range of options for the unique development, but the initiative had never continued, neither in art nor in ideology. An attempt to artificially formulate and lead a new movement, «take the lead», didn’t make sense: time and authorities do select appropriate solutions on their own.

Imposed symbols of the country are nothing but some attributes that society is used to ignore. A spirit of freedom has prevented immature tastes of the official structures to become the only and unchallengeable face of the epoch. The same spirit of freedom was conducive to development of various initiatives of marginal character: the lost of sustainable socialization by large groups of population is distinctive characteristic of our times. To use Marxist methodology, it is conscious actions rather than unconscious reflexes that matter in human activities. An odd – provincial, amateurish – version of fashionable world trend is also characteristic of the epoch, but without declared artistic goal whatsoever. Freudism referred slips of the tongue and mistakes to the area of perversion – realization of the subconscious that works under psychological censorship. In modern – informed, revolutionized, and free – culture forbidden territories are shrinking, and, it seems like there is no need to look for hidden meanings and coded messages in accidental examples. However, in the visual culture of the past Epoch there are numerous symbolic mistakes, mystical combinations, significant allusions that are hardly amenable to monosemantic interpretations. Some of the monumental bloopers are getting nationwide importance.

Till 2002, before Vladimir Lenin’s monument was taken down, the religious rites on the main square were conducted on the background of the famous atheist’s monument. And this was not left without attention of photographers and representatives of contemporary arts. Naturally, this was an image of inconsistency of human memory, quick change of ideological priorities, people’s desire to be established in the faith, but not that of the epoch. Absurdity of the inept official propaganda, incomprehensible bureaucratic language and sluggishness of the authorities also provide food for the artistic work, but oftentimes, with time, the pieces built on such facts become nothing but a herbarium of the last year’s leaves.

Playbills of «Ala-Too» movie theatre invariably cause positive reaction of the Western tourists and metropolitan intellectuals: thrill at the energy of the creation, joy of victory over stereotypes, pride for «our response to Hollywood». Freedom in the republic amounts to permissiveness, and… brings about the most unique phenomenon. The fact of artistic outrage against Hollywood movie stars is welcomed and an author is not punished. Good quality posters would look irrelevantly provincial and inferior. In our case, this is the case of the satire on the world glamour, and the unadulterated comedy of their mores. During many years, a large, surprisingly even by its artistic merits, series of the playbills has been created. It is fabulous: the playbills – the phenomenon of urban primitivism – are exposed at the center of the capital, in front of the House of the Union of Artists!

In 2002 the statue of Vladimir Lenin was replaced by the statue of Liberty, which was supposed to reflect a new image of the country, in the form of the Greek mythology goddess strikingly resembling the Christian guardian angel. This monumental piece unmasking its creators has shown that the authorities and artistic upper echelon absolutely lack any kind of ideas of plastique. This is an apotheosis of latent postmodernism in the republic. Appropriations are not concealed: the authors «forgot» that similar guardian angels in 1970s decorated facades of almost all postmodern projects of the Western architecture – from banks to country villas. Our «project» is also the attribute of the epoch – its diagnosis, and food for psychoanalysts.

What can be considered a spirit, image, visual symbols, and artistic face of the epoch? Most likely, formation of these concepts is the prerogative of history. Some phenomena, over time, become ludicrous and awkward, but some, vice versa, become indubitable achievements of spirituality. Without inappropriate rhetoric and sarcasm, it is important to look more carefully into an image that can be explicated by the moods in society, the epoch’s view on itself, expectations and disappointments.

A question «What can be considered a visual image of the epoch? » will always remain open. Other generations will try to understand the symbols of the time in their own manner. Now, it’s important to make the first step following fresh impressions and original memories leaving space for different accounts and further interpretations.

It would be a naïve attempt to thoroughly examine all cultural events: priority choice here is the artistic phenomena that shaped distinctive image of the country during the period of 1991 through 2005. It is not the history of painting, the cinema or advertising. We do not look at the processes born in the Soviet times and just continued nowadays. Nor do we examine projects out of contexts of time and place: cosmopolitism trends are essential in the culture of Kyrgyzstan, oftentimes it’s a natural response to extremely provincial interpretation of originality, but it is an entirely different theme. The goal of this project is not (and it can’t be) to put everything right, classify pieces of art into ingenious and dull, and finally determine the look of the epoch. Perhaps, some of the quite important works of art will be left out of this publication. This is the first attempt to study a cultural process that took place in a new space of the recent past, and some degree of perplexity and inaccuracies are possible here. A certain degree of subjectivity is prevented by the fact that most of the phenomena involved are on the surface, and got various awards, and their artistic merits are obvious. [1] Conventionally, all visual environment can be divided into three parts: the Soviet past, the patriarchal past and the Western influence. The Soviet style is present only as nostalgic projects; and the greater its ideological motives, the lesser it is apprehensible now. The influence of «G8» culture will only grow. The paradox of the Western world: principles of cultural diversity are declarative statements of a society that aims at common standards in everything and the effect of blending standards grows with advances in technologies. The worldwide trend: standard plus ethnography and study of local lore. Without doubt, it’s necessary to take into account a permanent desire to identify oneself in external world, find one’s own face. Visual characteristic of the time can only become comprehensible in hindsight, only in comparison. But the uniqueness of our situation is in the fact that the change of power was sudden, it was a rejection rather than succession: the time has made a leap and it is a chance, it encourages boldness in interpretations. This fact is embodied in the title of the project: not from above, but the review of phenomena that were deprived of their roots.

[2] The concept of the visual is everything we perceive through our eyesight. Perhaps, it’s necessary to differentiate between visual environment and visual culture. In everyday life a visual environment affects us and availability of technical equipment make many participants of this impact. Pieces of visual culture are created according to certain artistic, aesthetic principles and norms, possibly outdated or mistaken. Any randomly chosen object can become aesthetically significant, but only a cultural worker or an artist reveals or pinpoints this virtue. The society got used to consider pieces of art as something created only for the reason of being considered as such (although oftentimes nails are hammered by heels). A word, text, in visual arts play important role, but in the upshot people perceive predominantly a visual component.

[3] The notion of officially recognized line in the Western culture does not have the same meaning we stick to until now. The market demands and censorship shapes the concept of «mainstream» – the main direction. In essence, this is what is consumed most, i.e., what is paid for. The market of arts in the republic is not sufficiently developed, which could have determined the «mainstream» of republican culture, and official recognition plays an important role, although much less important than under the «dictatorship of proletariat». The main direction is shaped by: official approval, the public approval (for the most part, by the metropolitan intellectuals), the quantity of prestigious awards and prizes, and personal (at times wearisome) activity of the authors.
Cinema and Advertising

It would be reasonable to expect that nowadays the cinema would wind up in a difficult, perhaps hopeless, situation. Given the lack of support from the state and expensive nature of movie production, such a prediction could have become a reality. But it is the cinema, notwithstanding logic, that remarkably continued renowned traditions of the «Kyrgyz miracle» of the late 1960s. [1] It is safe to assume that the cinema of independent Kyrgyzstan in its best pieces followed the line of the author’s cinema – the artistic principles formulated in the USSR. Dissolution of ideological censorship and quite successful adoption of non-state forms of funding have created ideal conditions for free and inexpensive creativity, in terms of production. It seems that nothing new has been proffered in the context of the world achievements – traditional schemes and tested formulas have been used. But it is the principles of the author cinema – ignoring the commercial success and building on the personal emotional experience – have shaped the national «cinematograph of the new wave» [2] and brought about international success to this phenomenon. The paradox is in the fact that in the area of the chamber and subjective cinematographic art there have been found images of the Epoch acceptable to the country and authorities. Moreover, these images managed to enrich by its originality all other visual patterns of the official propaganda.

The history of the cinematographic art of the first period of independence is pervaded by the numerous outstanding and interesting events. The most original ideas of the past Epoch are represented in Aktan Abdykalykov’s works: from 1993 through 2001 the producer consistently creates his main cinematographic work, the famous trilogy – movies «Selkinchek», «Beshkempir», and «Maimyl».

Aktan Abdykalykov, a self-taught producer, having been worked for a long time as an artistic stage manager at the national cinema studio and mastered all Soviet cinema traditions, as a movie producer has been shaped in the post-Soviet epoch. The integrity of the trilogy author’s nature has allowed building a strong team of like-minded people and creating the original cinematographic world in his movies. The world of one theme, that of the growing country adolescent. All events are slowly developing in a typical countryside, and the image of Kyrgyzstan is an image of a country of personable and simple rural people. Aktan Abdykalykov’s works were the most successful with this theme personified in highest artistic manner in the most famous movie of the trilogy – «Beshkempir». [3]

Myth, people, catharsis
The movie is a typical story of first love, disenchantment, spiritual pain, losses, and gains. The hero of the story is a regular guy, an integral part of a modest world of rural community. The story is full of lyrical memories and personal life experience of the producer: an elder friend-patron takes a girlfriend for a cycle ride; a granny is undoing a handkerchief knot with her savings to give money for cinema; an open cinema theater with requisite Indian melodrama – a place for dating and acquaintances. Stealing eggs and rescuing from bees, a smiling girl and lowered pants, jealous rival and a serious fight. Mise-en-scenes are interlinked by contrasting comparisons and logically build the thought-out drama. Ancient rites, the past of the main character; carefree games and audacious pranks are rotated with daily routines of rough rural life; ceremonies of funerals – with the scenes of the youth’s love. Genuineness makes the movie persuasive, and boorish peasant humor saves it from extreme naturalism. Here as well, clever juggling of contrasts: the scenes of a kid’s onanism are «impeded» by symbols: a bird of quaint beauty hoopoe; cow returning from pastures. Cows, a source of peasants’ prosperity, symbolically stomp a sand woman, a handmade sculpture of semi-juvenile desire. The story line is pithy, dialogues explain actions. And the movie is clear to all without words, creating the large and visible myth of childhood with the captivating persuasiveness. The movie is about kids, not for kids: the adults recognize themselves and Kyrgyzstan as a spiritually intimate country; and some unknown hamlet becomes a universally charming place. One of the indubitable achievements of the trilogy is a «rehabilitation» of patriarchal plastique. Clothes, patchwork quilts, utensils, plain adobe textures and ancient rites – the whole movie’s entourage is natural, emotional, and doesn’t seem artificially bizarre. The authors know these things, handle them, and understand their meaning as being both functional and symbolic. People are the beauty of practicality, and observance of ceremonies is a proper behavior of a spirit in any, at times tragic, situations.

The finale is solved not as action, but as dialogue, – it’s solved as plastique and could have seemed crumpled, were it not so felicitous. By means of fancifully entwined hands in children’s game called «magic threads» and music, the author managed to bring in almost physical feeling of blissful poetry. And it becomes clear why we need explicit scenes, why death and a sense of loneliness at the end. It is not gallantry, not spectacular choices of authors and not brutal exoticism – all ends with a triumph of creativity and love! Finale – catharsis. All is amenable to analysis, but except understanding, there is a sense of miracle – major artistic success.

Unsophisticated characters and positive attitude became a key to understanding the epoch, its strengths and weaknesses; they will continue in cheerful social commercials; will be in demand in election campaigns.

An Official Myth of the Epoch
Simultaneously Aktan Abdykalykov works on short films in social commercial genre. They are all have a single boilerplate: cinematographic illustration of the popular wisdoms in form of proverbs and adages. The main thing here is optimism, and incidental conflict represented as a minor clash just anticipates the happy end. If boys fail to fetch a bucket of water – fighting and spilling it – if there was not a wise old man and traditional way to carry heavy buckets, the game was on the verge of turning into real fight, and only cheerful and symbolic joke, as it often happens, discharges an atmosphere. The family idyll is destroyed by vodka, hard drinking is not a social evil, but just a fault of a husband, father and son. The boys are running to the lofty, lined up like a stork flock, on the beautiful mountainous meadows. [4]

These touching shorts were met by political elites with enthusiasm; many took them as the essence, the quintessence, a summary of the producer’s creative career. By and large, this was a successful transformation of creative achievements of the trilogy’s movies, but artistic images were without sophistication and lacked a drama. It is these idealized narratives expressed the essence of official ideology of the Epoch of the first president, played an important role in establishment of the country’s positive image. Here the regime saw its reflection, image, suitable for a small independent country, not epic or heroic – it would be ridiculous – but ingenuous and nice. It represented the Epoch’s optimism – we are all right, in spite of some temporary and – economic, social – difficulties that can be overcome. [5]

The reality proved to be tougher: the course of life knocked over these artificial constructions and demands different interpretation. Perhaps, the simple moral of folk proverbs is not sufficient in the modern world of complex relationships. Aksakals (elderly, «white beard») won’t be instrumental in macroeconomics, and the popular wisdom becomes the heritage when reproduced by personal experience of contemporaries. Social commercials didn’t pursue educating others. Major goals – those of presentation – were reached, but intellectuals within Kyrgyzstan took these propaganda films as consolation of the public and lulling the regime. [6]

Art does not solve problems and oftentimes embellishes them; embellishment performs an ethical function and is welcomed by any system of government. However, if one succeeds in creating an aesthetically mature image, it creates an ideal world that people will easily inhabit and make it reality. Aktan Abdykalykov’s heroes are those of the patriarchal world artistically mastered by the country’s arts. But this world is passing. One way or the other, the arts of the independent republic will have to master the city: not only embrace a new worldview – new rules of social way of life; but also shape a new sense of universe – own urban culture. Without a doubt, the world art affects us, which constantly provides a multitude of quite acceptable solutions. In the city we all live under the influence of other countries’ cultural spaces. In the modern world, there is nothing wrong with such a virtualization (it’s rather a progressive trend), but it would be nice to have our own, aesthetically mature, niche in this proposed list of option. Marat Sarulu’s movie «Rapid River, Tranquil Sea» is the most successful project in this direction. In 2004, the last version of this movie has been produced.

Metamorphoses of the Sacral Myth
The narrative foundation of the movie is a story of three brothers with individual positions in life and their own problems. And they can’t find common language. But after they had to sell their father’s greenhouse to solve the youngest brother’s debt problems, they realized that they have deeper connections in the world of unsolvable contradictions. Having lost what they inherited from a father, something that formally linked them together, they apprehended the power of spiritual ties, the power of the main precept of ancestors – the necessity to keep building, to move ahead. With pain and poignancy they have to break up with patriarchy. How to do it in the modern world of indifference and egotism? To strive to grow a garden – a call to learn living in an alien and inhospitable environment.

And an artistic task of the movie – to serve as an inspiration for a concrete urban milieu; not the tourism scenes of the capital, but an everyday entourage of a typical urbanite. For this reason, the producer creates a plastique thread, invents fantasy of dream-myths, and successfully makes it. A construction site seems the best place for captivating a scene of dating. An ugly underground is filled with the mystery of the scene with goggles and a «black» character. An abandoned library is a symbol of the collapse of the «most reading country» which becomes an element of a new myth, not patriarchal one. The father’s greenhouse, a girl with a peacock’s feather, a roof, a road, the whole visual thread of the movie is the most expressive texture of the city in our cinematograph. This familiar but not real city – luminous empty spaces in a trance of a dream and drugs – as a result of artificially created vistas, has appealing imaginative power.
The leading theme of the movie is a sequence of signs of destruction: an old damaged photo of brothers, short life of sand castles on the beach, an empty greenhouse. A theme of the failure of traditions – favorite in local art – gradually becomes a theme of the metamorphosis of things. We got exactly what we needed: a new aesthetics replace the old one, with romanticism of changes, hidden sentimentalism, and unavoidable urban skepticism, and humanism without histrionics. A flying page of a dumped book, in the form of an airplane, a solitary white piece against the background of urban buildings, is a symbol of ability to live in a crowd and be emotionally lonely. «Rapid River, Tranquil Sea» becomes an alternative to the official line. While the images of Aktan Abdykalykov’s movie trilogy have been accepted as folkloric ones, the plastique of Marat Sarulu movie does not seem like having a real foundation and seems more like a product of an idea. But this is an image of our contemporary turned into a permanently marginal person. The process of shaping the country’s image will always take place between blending processes and self-identification quests. And Marat Sarulu’s movie very accurately interprets the process of searching and finding one’s own image as a quest for new spirituality.

«Silent» Movie
In the last movie of Aktan Abdykalykov’s trilogy «Maimyl» (2001), the scene is set in an urban village close to a railroad. The hero has grown up, and is harried by serious passions of adolescence. Aimless pastime, games resembling obscene jokes; childhood friends turn into drug addicts, a sand women «revives» as a drunk girl with a dubious background, and a father turns out to be nothing but drunkard. As a mockery (or hope) – not a symbol of statehood and traditions – a red rag flutters on a handcar.

The movie could have become criticism of the official line, an expression of doubts about declared prosperity. What matters in art is the artistry, not a position. The same devices of plastique mise-en-scene rotation are being used, but here: slowness turns into tension, ingenuousness turns into callousness, and the boring characters of the movie story do not cause sympathy. Conflict is not a drama but a drunken brawl; humor resembles a hackneyed joke; during the fire you don’t see catharsis – a strumpet sheds drunken tears. The producer tried to widen the world of patriarchal village, but failed in doing so. There is lack of genuineness in demonstration of a miserable reality. And the only deep and touching character is a girl-switch-woman with a birthmark disfiguring her face. The striking potential of this story line has not been exhausted.

The theme of the patriarchal world’s passing in Tolomush Okeev’s movie «Pasture of Bakai» shot in 1996 was addressed as a harmony, as a vivid tragedy: a young character, after heartbreaking scene of farewell, joyfully heading for the city – new and now close, beloved world. But this character has not been developed: the traditional art of Kyrgyzstan has not completed it as a narrative, as interesting dialogues, as a sphere of intellectual communication. We are yet to work on it. [7] A character of the last movie of Aktan Abdykalykov’s trilogy is also leaving his village but without joy, or hope. Our art interprets the city as the flawed world of mercenaries and base vices, as abandonment of people and oblivion of patriarchal spirituality; and such a ritual criticism is not credible anymore: it just pays lip service to the latter and turns into extremely harmful position. In «Beshkempir» movie the plastique is based on popular mythology, and its ideological origin is clear. In «Maimyl» a single plastique doesn’t create a spirit of the movie and the lack of a sound component (in scenario, dialogues, context) has become a threatening factor – threatening for its artistry. It is not a classic silent movie – the one is in fact silent. There is nothing to say – no new, interesting, original and positive ideas. In a commercial advertising the national currency a ballerina Bubusara Beishenalieva is already seriously sick, talks with the minister of culture, watches a film with her dancing and says:
– Oh, God! I was told: «Quit the theater and you will live». But I did live only on stage!
And deformed by pain and tear-stained face of the actress is inspired by the tragic beauty of words.
Intelligent work on a text is a probable solution to the impasse. It is not wise to rely on brilliant plastique solutions such as the «Beshkempir» finale. New visual images should be reinforced, endorsed, animated by new words with new, deeper and more accurate understanding of reality. [8]

The Country’s Advertising
Modern business and audiences make advertising a leader of the visual environment. This potential is used for realization of social and cultural projects in post-Soviet countries with various degrees of success. Professional cinematographers’ new role in advertising business can partially explain this success. They are trying to adapt new sphere to their «cinematographic» education. Over time, pure marketing technologies universally replaced the line of «ideal advertising». In Kyrgyzstan this phenomenon is continued in a number of «Ordo» Studio’s projects, a series about the national currency and «Shoro» drink advertising campaign being among its most successful ones. Creative movie production becomes a noticeable phenomenon of the Epoch where the authors do advertise the country along with advertising goods.

The idea of the first project is straightforward: the national currency is presented through mini narratives about historical figures, portrayed on banknotes. Given a lack of full-length staged films, such an attempt doesn’t seem superfluous. There is no wearisome verboseness and psychological nuances: a society’s aspiration to get its own historical image series was realized in an accessible way. Some figures were absent in the Soviet art for ideological reasons, and interpretation of others turned out to be unsatisfactory for new times. Persuasive visual images of the widest spectrum are animated in our mind ranging from the secret service agent of Stalin’s days to famous minister of culture. The project is a series of historical features that have outdone all other proposals realized in the area during this period. And it’s pitiful that the initiative has not been continued. [9]

Uncle Shoro was conceived as a symbol of an advertising campaign and managed to become an artistic image. The situation is characteristic of the «wild» period of the post-Soviet period – an advertising hero became a national hero. Everything is elaborated in teeny-weeny details: helmet, goggles, jacket, and boots. There is also a legend – most likely, he had been a military. A military uniform has become a uniform of people who delivered the national soft drinks. He slowly drives his motorcycle with a barrel, and a cycle of stories are getting lined up in a full-length saga about a taciturn, wise, and mustached driver. The uniqueness of the product has determined the exclusivity of the character – done brilliantly, shot professionally. But it was not enough for the hero to get nationwide recognition. In Uncle Shoro they divined the society’s desire to satiate a visual environment with its own, recognizable and accepted – not imposed, not patriarchal, not national – collective symbols. The meaning of this event for us is in overcoming a complex related to impossibility of the popular character common to a multicultural country. The international character made in traditions of national culture has emerged. And while serious art has been participating in the Western festivals, taking advantage of patriarchal exotics and oriented to the intellectual elites, the function of the popular art’s duty of in Kyrgyzstan has been taken on by … advertising.

One of the official slogans of the past epoch declared – «Kyrgyzstan is our common home». In Uncle Shoro’s character this idea was embodied in artistic form and proves its powerful potential unlike quickly forgettable, in spite of being ideologically consistent, phrases.
Paradoxically, commercials, often seen as entertainment genre, are often get involved in the serious issues of visual identification, and right here the positive cases of urban culture get realized. This trend is most evident in «Bitel’s» commercial with a slogan «outpacing time». Given the lack of competitive television and high rating TV-programs, we see an active, dynamic, headlong urban environment: there is a protest against the overused stylistics of rural romanticism in an advertising campaign. The audience could not recognize their own city and familiar streets: it is a different interpretation of an environment, positive and inspiring with a new attitude towards business and the country. Here is both standard of a lifestyle, and a realization of a well-known argument – the most important thing is efficiency of an idea, not its novelty. It is important work and an inevitable phase. And while «Bitel’s» commercials got dispelled in numerous imitations, a series of advertising campaign «MobiCard» is a unique artifact of a new visual urban culture. [10] The characters here are not standard: away from advertising stereotypes and traditional art. Bizarre, eccentric, funny characters look current: the authors managed to avoid stereotypes, worked with modern «merchandize» – important material – in modern stylistics of brevity and total impact. Commercials looked like amusing jokes and, beyond their functional task, they widened our idea about possible alternatives of development. Advertising is a factor unifying the visual environment and its originality depends solely on the talent of its creators. The above examples interactively affect profound processes in artistic milieu, which does not go along with traditional conceptions of the society’s culture and this is the most amazing phenomenon of the past Epoch.

[1] The Kyrgyz miracle – a phenomenon in the cinematograph of the Soviet Kirgizia of the late 1960s. The political «thaw» in USSR has caused the growth of republican cinematographs. «Bakai’s Pasture» of Tolomush Okeev, «Gunfire on Karash Pass» of Bolot Shamshiev, «The Tough Pass» of Melis Ubukeev, «The Mother’s Field» of Gennady Bazarov and many others are the movies produced in the period of 1960s and 1970s that made conversations on Kyrgyz movie-miracle possible.
[2] The author of the definition Talip Ibraimov classifies the main achievements of the Epoch’s cinema: Aktan, Marat, Ernest … and others. Ernest Abdyjaparov – a movie producer (director), script writer, active participant of the republican cinema-process. His first full-length film «Saratan» was shot in 2004. The producer’s style is still ripening and at this juncture it’s hard to classify him as a finished phenomenon of the Epoch. «Saratan» is more about plot, the plastique is not accentuated. The method is interesting by its origin: it’s a continuation of the Soviet attitude to plastique as an element of expressiveness which does not have its own independent merits.
[3] Amongst «Beshkempir»(1998) awards are «Silver Leopard» of the cinema festival in Locarno (Switzerland) and Grand-prix of «Eurasia» cinema festival in Almaty (Kazakhstan).
[4] «Yrys aldy – yntymak» (The accord is the guarantee of success), «Alakandai elibiz, yntymaktuu bololu» (Literally, our people is like as small as a palm, and we should live in peace), «Kelecheginer ken bolsun» (May your way to the future be wide), «Alda ailanaiyndar ai» (Oh, my hapless people) and others – films of 1996-1997.
[5] Most likely, the republic’s population and foreign experts subconsciously appreciated such an image. Aktan Abdykalykov’s works had a sensational international success.
[6] Later on, other film producers created quite a lot of social commercials and the election campaign commercials with various plots. Some of them prefer different style, but by and large – all of them follow the established, accepted, fashionable «beshkempir» course. They only differ in details, that’s why there is no need to refer to other examples.
[7] In the Soviet Union we relied upon the city’s image, made by the art of the empire. It seemed that it would last forever, such a situation satisfied everybody. We all were «afoniyas» and «buzykins» in a sense.
[8] Paradoxically, in a publication on visual culture we lament over the lack of words: belles-lettres and philosophy. Not only we look at – we also perceive: recollect analogies, analyze the logic, and are guided by the myth. If it does not happen, we do not grasp and retain the plastique. It does not become a symbol – it remains to be the «appearance.» This publication emphasized the visual component of the culture. And it does reflect the realities of our culture, its development specifics in bilingual environment. When one component is highlighted, the whole is always gets inadequate representation which is also one of the Epoch’s characteristics. The Epoch for the most part was visual because of incoherent policies in the area of verbal culture. In a sense, it was necessary to go beyond oral folklore, mastering written meanings. Bilingualism is not about simultaneous usage of two languages on a daily basis – it’s about synergy resulting from the experience of both which brings about doubling of their power. There is hope that making Russian an economic factor will solve this problem.
[9] There were six commercials in total: Abdylas Maldybaev, Byubyusara Beishenalieva, Kasymaly Tynystanov, Togolok Moldo, Kurmanjan-Datka, Toktogul Satylganov.
[10] Separated trends often conflate. Expansion of the unique identity turns into blending. Only the presence of universal values in concrete sensual fact makes a work of art meaningful, interesting for all, for the whole world. Being replicated, the success becomes a standard. If not, it remains a unique characteristic.
It would be appropriate to mention all authors responsible for the plastique of movies. Selkinchek (Swing). 1993. Producer: Aktan Abdykalykov. Script writer: Aktan Abdykalykov, Ernest Abdyjaparov, Talgat Asyrankulov. Camera man: Khasan Kydyraliev. Production designer: Talgat Asyrankulov. Beshkempir. 1998. Producer: Aktan Abdykalykov. Script writers: Aktan Abdykalykov, Avtandil Adykulov, Marat Sarulu. Camera man: Khasan Kydyraliev. Production designer: Emil Tilekov.

Maimyl (Monkey). 2001. Producer: Aktan Abdykalykov. Script writer: Aktan Abdykalykov, Avtandil Adykulov, Tonino Guerra. Camera man: Khasan Kydyraliev. Production designer: Jylkychy Jakypov, Erkin Saliev. Rapid River, Tranquil Sea. In the Hope (In Spe). 2004. Producer: Marat Sarulu. Script writer: Marat Sarulu. Camera man: Manasbek Musaev. Production designer: Bakir Djusunbekov. Social commercial of Aktan Abdykalykov sponsored by “Soros-Kyrgyzstan” Foundation. Aktan Abdykalykov, Khasan Kydyraliev, Emil Tilekov, Erkin Boljurov took part in production of a series of social commercials. «Ordo» advertising films. A series of advertising films «Shoro». 1996 – 2007. Producer: Furkat Tursunov. Timur Ashrapov, Alexander Baryshnikov, Khasan Kydyraliev, Erkin Saliev, Alexander Yurtaev contributed to the film.

A series of commercials on the national currency. 1997-1998. Idea: Shamil Djaparov, Furkat Tursunov. Script: Leonid Dyadyuchenko. Producer: Shamil Djaparov. Camera-men: Furkat Tursunov, Khasan Kydyraliev. Composer: Alexander Yurtaev. Artist: Sharip Joilobaev. A series of commercials on «Bitel», «MobiCard». 2000 – 2005. Producer: Furkat Tursunov. Khasan Kydyraliev, Artur Nurmuhamedov, Alexander Yurtaev contributed to the production.

Painting
Painting has long ago ceased to affect on the visual image of environment, lost its earlier role of a vanguard of artistic experimentation. In the new Epoch for Kyrgyzstan, «another» meaning of painting in the modern world is discovered: it’s not only the artistic mastery of the reality, but also the last stronghold where the unique identity of small countries and cultural diversity for the whole world are preserved. The visual arts of the initial years of independence were considerably affected by the «New Wave,» marked event in painting of the Perestroika epoch. It was mastering the Western art in political freedom, and it was talented mastering with promising launch. Modernism in its open version began to develop: with the Soviet camouflage discarded. In painting of the 1970s one can still see an image balancing between the reality and symbols of an artist’s inner world. In a new movement, a figure remains but it does not have a spirit and psychological complexity: an image is just a sign of new mythology. The «New Wave’s» successes was a revolution in the visual field of the republic; but by early 1990s, attempts to shock people become fake, stylistic neatness turns into heartless snobbism. The whole period of 1990s was a decade of search for a way out of the deadlock of artistic situation: disillusionment with principles of modernism, commercialization of painting, invasion of art by poorly educated marginal people.

Jylkychy Jakypov. Ancient song. 1987
Kadyr Bekov. Outcasts. 1990
In Jylkychy Jakypov’s work, an indubitable leader of the «New Wave,» outlines of a skeleton, a mummy, a stone idol are lined up in a meaningful combination as a rhythm of an ancient song as a basis for the sacred myth. Stone idol for some reasons lies on its side and this move breathes new life into interpretation of a favorite patriarchal symbol. «Outcasts» of Kadyr Bekov is a new theme in the republic’s painting. A lamp, a dog, a boy and an old woman are familiar characters, but sources of the compilation are deeply hidden and an original interpretation makes the work a genuine narrative of a mythological story. The works are characteristic of late 1980s – new approach to the concepts of theme, form and image. Interpretation of the ethnographic motives is rigid, without jingoism, and it makes painting absolutely modern. Mysticism and shocking behavior bewitch by frightening combinations, painting strikes with vigorous potential of its forms and ideas, and it’s not clear why this line has not continued as brilliantly as it had begun.

Yuristanbek Shygaev. Lady in Mask. 1993
Painting of the disillusionment in modernism period. Hints are clear and everything is on the surface – this is a mystery of fate with a card in hands. A pitcher, a mask, and the queen of clubs – recognizable signs of the Western culture, but the figure, shoulder position and the hairstyle resemble «Egyptian roots» of formal searches of the «New Wave.» Transitional work, indiscriminate combinations and a deadlock situation: Western modernism and Soviet primitive, formal perfection with the lack of originality. Quotations can astonish by the beauty and completeness of its shape, but they do not touch by certainty of outdated meanings. Such a work could have appeared in Moscow, London, Paris, wherever – where cosmopolitanism has irrevocably replaced the unique identity.

Trends that allow making any conclusions have transpired only in the new century. In visual arts of this period there are no any clearly stated movements, trends, groups; and it’s extremely hard to apply satisfactory classification. Fierce struggle for freedom of creativity took to another extreme: versions of development are mainly the results of efforts of individual representatives of once united Union of Artists. But, given the heterogeneity of suggestions, one thing is clear: it was modernism per se, and what happens after modernism is characterized as postmodernism. This definition, putting all debates over the terms aside, helps find out what has emerged in Kyrgyz painting during the first period of independence. The ideology of postmodernism boils down to rejection of missionary ambitions of the artistic vanguard. There are no passionate revolutionary manifests anymore – but rather understanding that there are problems without possible solutions; and, given the lack of histrionics – slight and conscious irony. Indiscrimination is emphasized by the lack of an accurate term, compilations are not hidden: the more important thing is vivid visual identification no matter how it was achieved. A way to overcome the crisis is to create associatively rich, eclectic images – a multitude of quotations from the world heritage and popular culture. The republic’s artists, having given credit to shocking modernism, in their best works managed to shape stylistically neat version of republican postmodernism. This trend quickly absorbs new ideas, keeping the formal state of painting during the Epoch of the first president at quite high level.

The Creative Impulse of Ethnographic Postmodernism Decorative works with a fair amount of folk arts would not have become as popular and remained in the area of the serious arts if eclecticism were not universally accepted as an artistic method. The emergence of the national version of postmodernism was not a conscious act. Different artists worked from different positions in one direction that resulted in some sustainable trend. To some degree this trend encompasses Yuristanbek Shygaev, Kanybek Davletov, Suyutbek Torobekov, Jyrgal Matubraimov, and Bekten Usubaliev. These are diverse authors, but some common generic and recurring principles characterize their works. [1]

First of all, bold combination of quotations from the world art and folk arts. Guidance by patriarchal heritage – a reasonable and natural move. And involvement of the world trends is emphasized by straightforward imported elements. Second, modernistic interpretation of folk arts and plastique is recycled by all and it remains to be an element of expressiveness. Painting has not lost the formal achievements of the «New Wave,» and it helped this movement avoid turning into lifelike description of heroic mythology, but establish itself as a valuable translation of the national culture’s peculiarities on international market of arts. Third, the principles of nomadism [2] got an original interpretation. Fashionable ideology, now in demand in cultures of Central Asian countries, affects artistic methodology of the national postmodernist project. In the dynamics of the modern process, the pursuit of unconditional originality leads to impotency to act, dooms to eternal latency without any chances to become real. That’s why it becomes important to master any stylistics; take its form, methods and appropriate them – enrich them, fill them with own ideas and myths – and thus win in this universal race of cultural «privatization.» Efficient mastery of achievements of the world culture relying on everlasting principles of folk arts is the creative impulse of ethnographic postmodernism rather than histrionics of jingoism and narrow-minded patriotism. Here versatility of nomadism helps quietly and delicately without drama and complexes of inferiority, with dignity overcome outdated traditions.

Yursitanbek Shygaev. Kurak (Patchwork). 2006
The work as a quiet manifest, as an invisible ironic declaration of an artistic method. Without further ado, the principle of shaping «kurak,» the national version of a patchwork technique, is applied; formal interpretation – achievements of modernism. The world culture’s quotations are written in pieces and the most discernible ones are canonical signs of Pablo Picasso. Patchwork worldview: the whole can not be divided; the whole consists of parts and the originality is shaped by quotations. This is purely ethnographic postmodernism. Alai Czarina. 2005

This work of art was created on the eve of the Epoch’s collapse; provocative bright orange environment is filled with quotation from the world culture that literally disturbs imagination. Kurmanjan Datka is a tragic figure in the history of formation of the statehood; but it’s not an aged ruler – a harmony and peace of mind of an ancient goddess are on her face. She holds a hunting falcon as a sign of elected authority; a panther, a symbol of firmness, strictly protected principles of state organization. On the one hand, a glamorous lamp; and, on the other hand, the composition includes a black figure always signifying fragility of preconceived ideas and predetermination of fate. The meeting is calm: on the one hand, pacifying obedience, and on the other – definite inevitability of changes.
Kanybek Davletov. Hunting. 2004
Kanybek Davletov. Waiting. 2005
Kanybek Davletov. Morning. 2004
Symbolic silhouette of a girl in a familiar national outfit; a chariot similar to a circus bicycle; a cat on the roof with all illustrative characteristics; a camel and a goat resemble petroglyphs, imaginary figures and strange mechanical beings; and surely the pieces of kurak. The titles do not matter; all the same elements are used in these works. The work is a play of combinations of these elements. And each work has its own appeal, hint, mystery: the white silhouette resembling a woman in the national attire, contour insertions – a stone idol, a figure turns into a tree and casts a strange shadow. Various forms are mastered in a single aesthetics, in modernistic wholeness, but it does not turn into stylistic coldness; the essence of forms – quotations, and the emerging world wakes strange associations. Well-known symbols seem to be painted over by the texture, and this is not modernism anymore, but its impact is evident.

Bekten Usubaliev. Game.
Bekten Usubaliev. Journey.
Bekten Usubaliev. Hunter.
Here are also constant variations of several themes: virgins, a donkey, a yurt, a camel, travelers and a hunter. Figures are sometimes interpreted more realistically, but at times turn into patterns strangely matching the geometry of patches. Familiar characters are idealized, but they did not turn into signs, they are symbols of the same feelings and meanings, but some inclusions always bring about ambiguity. A girl’s face resembles a mask, a yurt in the steppe – a stained-glass window, and the modern interior is placed on a camel’s back. A joyful liberty, absolute freedom in choosing methods enriches an artistic play. Danger of turning into a salon is overcome by rough, freak, raw texture of forms and … unexpected inner spirituality: characters are sweet postmodern toys and enigmatic beings.

Jyrgal Matubraimov. Lovers.
Many blame the author for direct citation of the famous Henry Matisse’s still life, but such a quotation is enrichment; we think that lovers also admire beautiful interpretation of decorative fishes that can not be different anymore. The form is found and there is no sense in inventing yet another faded variation. Isn’t it better to use the energy of a widely replicated symbol for one’s own purposes?
Jyrgal Matubraimov
Sometimes the very theme gets used for composition of an interesting postmodern experiment. An urban boy came to a patriarchal village, his birthplace and brought signs of the city in signs of a village. A hoopoe, adobe fence, a gate, a modern T-shirt, and patterns of stones on the ground are modern, interpreted too abstractly. And here is a bitch with hanging-down nipples resembling the Roman she-wolf. Representatives of our modernism are not afraid of strange combinations, do not torment themselves in search of appropriate meanings – all of this is a professional’s joke gambling on artistic luck.

National postmodernism has become the main direction in painting of Kyrgyzstan and has raised the level of the Epoch’s official line which otherwise would have been lower. The authorities met the message of decorative painting with modernist interpretation of the national themes, romantic narratives with symbols of folk arts in mid-1990s with enthusiasm and interest. At the beginning, the movement was considered novelty in the area of the language of painting of an independent republic. By mid-2000, signs of fatigue have surfaced: the themes are repeated over and over, exclusive catering for interests of salons, and unoriginality of the form becomes evident. [3] Although there is no sense in criticizing postmodernism for the lack of social orientation and nonconformist point of reference, some of the criticisms are absolutely justifiable. Oftentimes the method itself is not understood, mystification of an artistic process and accidental artistic luck covered by the wild incrustations of mythological supplements become merit. Sources of inspiration (principles of modernistic shaping) are thoughtlessly «forgotten» and the works suffer from the provincial complex of the ultimate truth.

Other movements are also emerging in visual arts. And, despite their diversity, they can be pooled into an alternative movement of the main direction – this is actual postmodernism, an individual nonconformist project, contemporary arts.

Actual Postmodernism
The postmodern project in the republic is divided into two branches: ethnographic and actual. Evgeny Boikov, Talant Ogobaev, Valery Ruppel, Adis Seitaliev, Konstantin Shkurpela, Ramis Ryskulov work in a style of actual postmodernism. These artists offered different and quite persuasive examples of modern painting. While the ethnographic movement uses the energy of ready-made artistic images, actual modernism involves a raw material of everyday life in its art and it shapes its distinctive features. [4] First, it is a conscious movement that is why it’s more intellectual. This is a post-Soviet postmodernism and it interprets histrionics as a crime. The aim of the post-Soviet arts is to forget an enthusiastic ideal of «a worker and a collective farmer», clean Augean stables of pompousness of the Soviet art for humanistic principles without missionary ambitions by means of irony. There is now unfashionable weakness in irony of postmodernism; it betrays a dream about beautiful ideal, genuine faith. It is a cautious art of local catharsis and the gradual refinement of a soul. But the total lack of the creative impulse is not acceptable to any authorities. Official structures always lapse into pompousness to corroborate its wellbeing which leads to depressingly inartistic results. And in this sense actual postmodernism consistently defends the ideals of non-conformism – opposition to ignorant and ideologically committed officialdom.

Second, nationality gets deeper interpretation: it rejects exploitation of widely marketed symbols of the national arts, and uses stylistically new phenomena of grassroots folk arts including urban ones.

Evgeny Boikov. My first Jacuzzi. 2000
Here are painted faces of real characters and an attempt to raise a routine event to the level of new plastique mythology by means of formal methods. The form seems caricatured, but it’s not a satire on the society’s mores. A utility device for the proletariat’s convenience is a frequent theme in the works of poets and artists of socialism (it’s great to live and life is great) and here is the remake in a small genre and irony about daily joys of today’s philistines. Creative impulse – often discussed theme in a certain period of time: gentle manifest – to make arts out of everyday life; and its form is down-to-earth, but refined.
Last VGIK Graduates. 1999
The last generation of intellectuals in cinematograph graduated from the All-USSR Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). The fragments of photos of real graduates are subjected to archival «aging,» inserted in ovals – the favorite postmodern shape. Deformed as dinosaurs, they resemble monumental epitaphs on the mausoleum of a single culture. It’s important to understand the irony about «those fortunate» educated in Moscow who upon arrival to their motherland inevitably became highly-spiritual elements; and the power of provincial circumstances that little by little equalize and correct everything. Sawed Up Robert T. Kiyosaki’s Book. 2005

The worthless book that has already been read is not left on the shelf in the living room. The history of working with material is going on. Now, its sawed up fragments are glued to a foundation represent disappointment with methods of making money hand over fist and protest against fetishes focused on success. There should be someone who works on developing culture on the outskirts and artistically grasps the wild uncultivated areas. Here a gesture fixes the mood which turns a form into action. As in genuine art, the point is not in the name, the author doesn’t cling to newfangled words. The presence of things, the mass, a text, and explanations is pushing the works of art out of genre. But the author himself, by conscious search for shape – demonstrates this work as painting.

Talant Ogobaev. Anamnesis. 2004. Delicate Radiance. 2004. Rondo. 2004. Duration. 2003
The author elaborately works with the form, doesn’t use gaudy contrasts and self-sufficient devices. Photos from a family album – personal and individual – become the public domain; signs of time are not concealed, not retouched, the texture is exposed. Tactful insertion of elements, cosmically conditional by color and shape, produces the effects of design and … accessibility. Old photos, postcards, drawings in Stalinist classicism, the Soviet period documents, pieces of notes – included, pasted in and animated by the modernist presentation, the artistry of the materials of traditional painting. We see interpretation without words, and the sheer plastique persuades us in the uniqueness of things; and this is done by means of gilding the precious framing of the daily life’s – stained blurs and roughness. In arts such aesthetics, being sterile, does not obstruct the life and work anymore: a thorny texture without thorns reconciles us to the unpainted, unsmoothed reality. Seitaliev Adis. Twilight / Laer

These works keep aloof, they are hard to classify: it’s fair to say that in Kyrgyzstan this is the best continuation of the principles of modernism in another epoch. Formal compositions would not have been able to stand out, but a simple ethnographic method is rejected to be followed at the level of … a texture. The genesis is described at the micro level and the surface «radiates» the originality that allows to precisely reveal its origins amongst the variety of similar works. The texture is perceived both as fur and damp patches on the exposed face – such affection for the aesthetics of everyday life make one interpret these works as the actual postmodernism.

Postmodernism is not about creating the fundamental symbols, such an opportunity is silenced. At the forefront is the statement that the artwork is original by its original compilation. In this sense, postmodernism in painting can be considered both a product of the mass culture and, at the same time, an artistic reaction to blending of the visual environment. The precepts of Malevich – dissolving art in daily routine – were taken in a new way in the actual modernism. Daily routine, imperceptibly processed by an artist, becomes the uniqueness; artworks, being dissolved, penetrating into reality turns this uniqueness into daily routine. To become art a style should die in daily life – this is the mysterious, paradoxical, hidden essence of postmodernism. Unfortunately, this quixotic attempt has not been appreciated by the majority of the educated public that remained on the positions of the Soviet stereotyped ideas of art as «the palace of culture» or «the center of spirituality». [5] But painting of the actual postmodernism is the future-oriented experiment and the most extraordinary phenomenon in visual arts of the republic.

Non-conformist Projects
Opposition to mainstream painting does not have features of a social protest that characterized the Soviet non-conformism. The paradox of the situation is in the fact that any shocker artworks lost their protest potential in the context of absolute freedom and have no ideological foundation other than formal rejection. Our painting vanguard is actually a continuation of what has not been realized in USSR for well-known reasons. Sergey Daragan, Valery Ruppel, Konstantin Shkurpela are the patriarchs of non-conformism in visual arts of Kyrgyzstan. The same tendencies can be traced in the works of Talant Ogobaev and Jylkychi Jakypov. The peculiarity of all our non-conformist artists is the frequent usage of the methods of contemporary arts standing on the formal positions of modernism. The task of non-conformism in the republic is to save the ideals of opposition to officially endorsed tastes. And it’s quite valuable phenomenon even in democracy without any ideological censorship.

Konstantin Shkurpela. From «Musical Instruments of the Soviet Life». 2000
«Sovok» must feel happy… 2001. Washing Tub Contrabas. 2001 If such works were to be emerged at the end of 1980s, most likely, their author would become a member of the world artistic elite. The fact that they came late do not strip them of their nonconformist energy and now these works remind about powerful potential of the painting vanguard in the republic. On the other hand, it was painting per se – objects, and the most idiosyncratic examples of the real Soviet art. The audience does not see the nonconformist orientation. The artwork is too beautiful and, instead of going through a shock therapy, the public is just captivated by a strange shape.

Valery Ruppel. Green City Project. 2004
All criteria make it a phenomenon of contemporary art, but it rooted in the Soviet past that is evident in the delicate shape of the «made» part of the project. A scaled feeling of the street is created in the museum: from both sides are green fences – large photos of real objects; in the center is a road heaped up by both garbage and all kinds of green tableware. This is a design of the Soviet street in an urban village, but with strange, formal and ideological interpretation. There are no modern signs, and all of it looks as nostalgia: the work seems to be about the past, but such a work couldn’t have appeared in those days. But is it needed today? Perhaps, this work is a mixture: lyricism and ambitions, modern methods and familiar designs.

Realistic Traditions
The «New Wave» in its times cleaned painting of the republic of the remnants of realism: thematic works based on the sketches on location seemed verbose and inarticulate antiquity. The serious impact of the Soviet elaborate modernism of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s kept the majority of artists away from returning the realistic school of thought. Individual attempts are of desultory nature and do not represent some conscious movement. Unfortunately, it seems certain that market laws and the lack of elaborate state policies can be held responsible for that. Small genres – landscape sketches, portraits and still-life – become parlor art, and thematic realism is not popular with the unsophisticated public that is not ready to sponsor an artist in his or her long-term endeavor and arduous quests.
Despite the authorities’ natural desire to save realistic traditions of native school, there is no basis for its development. Realism in country can’t rest upon either democratic principles of critical realism or religious humanism; and it lost optimistic potential of socialist realism’s project. Still, individual serious works created from time to time takes to a conclusion that easel realistic painting managed to sustain high traditions of the national school without catering to tastes of the men in the street, surmounted pressing financial difficulties and is patiently waiting for its moment of glory and serious attention of the public.

Yuristanbek Shygaev, Suyutbek Torobekov, Syrgak Kylychbekov. Issyk-Kul Forum. 1985
One of the most outstanding painting projects of the Perestroika epoch was dedicated to a meeting of famous representatives of the world’s nations under the slogan «Survival through Creativity» initiated by Chingiz Aitmatov. Members of the Forum are «inserted» in the well-known painting of Pablo Picasso. In artistic milieu this work was criticized for being timeserving: then it looked ridiculous, but now it’s quite in the spirit of modern painting. And the paradox is that all stylistic exercises and mythological constructions of those days are recollected as entertainment of talented artists, and the «Issyk-Kul Forum», its naïve and calculating nature aside, as the genuine desire of artists to actively participate in the life of society. This strange collage demonstrated a new approach to picture in the times of aspiration to the integrity of a style. Terminologically this work can be dubbed postmodern realism. And it seems that if something like this about real political and cultural events were to emerge now, it would become a gulp of fresh air: the whole republic would gather to see a picture. But painting of Kyrgyzstan virtually does not use this lesson learned in the past.

Non-conformist projects did not offer any comprehensive alternative to the mainstream. There are brilliant works popping up here and there, but no coherent line has transpired so far. We can talk about some common opposition of a multitude of works but the problem of our alternative projects is that they do not represent some consolidated movement. Lagging behind the cinematograph and advertising in terms of impact and being unable to materialize in realism and modernism, painting has reflected the epoch as the conformist irony of fatigue as a result of the false message, as a loss of positions of a unidirectional school. Splintered into many parts of self-sufficient ways of development, traditional visual art could not have advanced a strong, energetic, comprehensive movement; and this is characteristic of the epoch – interpretation of art as defending the individualistic rights. It was not democratic traditions of thematic realism, not missionary ambitions of modernism, not fashionable declarations of the contemporary arts, – indirect and invisible impact on the visual culture of society. The meaning of ethnographic and actual postmodernism boiled down to their ability to protect the tastes of a society from the marginal groups and captured the unique identity of the traditional visual arts of Kyrgyzstan! It’s safe to say that the postmodern project become a pictorial characteristic of the Epoch. However, it’s impossible remain ironical forever, playing with quotations and indulging in the plastique amusement of mind. Postmodernism trends in the art of Kyrgyzstan in the situation of artistic freedom should have been overcome and gotten a worthwhile antithesis. It would not be quite correct to state that in traditional visual arts there were no meaningful subject areas. But it’s safe to say that the works of easel painting lack the social component. Indeed, it has never come to be in demand because of the emergence of contemporary art.

[1] Any movement is characterized by the difference of the artists. Suffice it to recollect the profile of impressionists – Édouard Manet and Claude Monet. There are no more different painters than Rafael and Michelangelo.
[2] From the sedentary culture vantage point nomadic culture is usually perceived as the lack of culture. And if the plastique is a necessary quality, then the hope for breeding resources of nature and readiness to obediently suffer hardships without doing anything about it are the qualities detrimental to the modern life. Now nomadism can be considered an ideology of wide marginal groups that came into existence in the large-scale processes – political, social – perturbations. And, even without moving around, it’s possible to continuously be affected by ideology of nomads. This phenomenon can also be interpreted as dialectical response to the expansion of imperialism – expansion of plasticity, readiness to any changes.
[3] Postmodernist methods are also used in numerous works of parlor arts but in the best works they are present not as an attempt to follow the fashion, but as consciously followed principles. Formal perfection, purity of thoughts and sincerity of authors do not allow interpreting them as unambiguously parlor painting. In this sense, the official line in painting reflects the moods of the epoch, rather than forming them. It is not force but plasticity, not brilliant ideas, but subtle moods. The Epoch of the first president in some aspects resembles the epoch of rococo: the power struggle has quickly come to an end, everything has taken shape and there is nothing left to do – no job, other than engaging in fanciful morphogenesis.
[4] There is no need to look for new images in remote countries and life experience in virgin lands – creative impulses can come from ... television.
[5] Ideal art (the one based on ideas as opposed to the parlor art) is exactly the thing that call in question spiritual values (from a biography of the rogue Pechorin to the Master with incredible comprehension of justice). The goal of such assessments is renewal of the aesthetically attractive shell of spirit.

Contemporary Art
It’s hard to pinpoint the specific date when contemporary art has become part of artistic culture in Kyrgyzstan: the Soviet artists had been aware of new artistic trends in the West long ago, and even during the Soviet times at the traditional exhibitions they experimented with installations and objects. Ideological pressure has deformed these expressions of the socialist non-conformism allowing to interpret them as acceptable formal quests in the area of decorative arts. And only in late 1990s, in the artistic milieu of Kyrgyzstan the original version of contemporary art has emerged (contemporary art); [1] different understanding of an artistic method is being developed; a form is freed from modernistic stylistics. A new movement has attracted attention by elaboration on social problems, an original view of the civic position in art. Republican contemporary art has once and for all striped easel painting of its currency: new movement has openly stated its vanguard role in visual art of Kyrgyzstan. For the country’s culture this fact has become important because it served as an example of the artistic movement’s self-organization without any interference of the state. The contemporary art proponents’ personal initiatives have brought tangible results: participation of the Kyrgyz artists in the 2005 Venice Biennale became an important event. A new phenomenon is positively influencing all other artistic processes in Kyrgyzstan:

First of all, contemporary art has emerged as a cultural phenomenon of a regional scale. It’s safe to say that it serves as a uniting factor in Central Asian cultures breaking borders; and becomes a force summing up results of the artistic processes.
Second, contemporary art is interpreted as purely urban art, the one of a triumph of modern communication technologies. The republic’s traditional art is generally not interested in «ugly» urbanism. The new movement, apart from intentions to shock, is also charged with another type of energy – culture of a modern city.

And third: most participants of the new process have always been aware of their sovereignty. They realized that they have to count on themselves in creating artistic institutions from the outset. The movement has been fledging as a complex process that included the organization of exhibitions as curator events; promotion of works on international markets of art; publishing activities. The first periodical on contemporary art is launched. [2] There is no need to give a detailed account of the history of new movement: for the purpose of our research we have to find out the level of impact of contemporary art on shaping of our visual culture. Speaking of general trends, they all boil down to one goal – visualization of urban environment, modern, real environment, and the main theme of the contemporary art works is paradoxes in everyday life surroundings.

The Image of Habitat
Artistic mastery of the modern reality is not the prerogative of the new movement. But such a mastery has fully fledged only in contemporary art that neither was tied to old long-lasting methods, nor was it tied to traditional technologies, and was able to quickly react to any events. For the first time ever, new themes that were not accessible, possible and even inappropriate in traditional aesthetics have emerged. And our variation of contemporary art is an attempt to visually include the motives that never existed before in visual arts of the republic. The texture of everyday life is not smoothed, but an environment gets shocking interpretations as tough and unattractive from the outset. [3]

Texts of a marginal artist-poet Melis Berdyshev that appeared in early 1990s on the urban fences is an original precedent of the actual art in the republic. Never before did anybody think of using concrete surfaces of construction fences as blank sheets of paper for poetic exercises. For Melis Berdyshev it was probably the only opportunity to get heard. And he made it right: not a single poet in country can’t boast such a wide audience that this author managed to attract. This is a visualization of any private ambitions informally, without publishing houses, museums and creative unions. In contemporary art, texts can be written on fences and this is being done by poets not hooligans. Naturally the very notion of poetry gets revised which is now tactfully called a text. In this regard one can conjure up the movie called «Bus Stop» by Aktan Abdykalykov (1993). One foreground is kept frozen for quite a while: waiting on the bus stop is halted. A symbol of indecisiveness. You realize it when you give up looking for some interesting story line. The meaning and genuineness of this work is exactly in a halt: actually, formally, in the frame. Further standard story line has only weakened its strong position and seems to serve as a mere background. Here is both a method of new art – in the first part – and its negation – in the second part. This example also demonstrates that the very methods of the phenomena are not really new. What’s really new is bold and decisive emancipation from habitual rules and formats (it takes quite the audacity to a call pissoir the art in order for smutty jokes to develop into Freudianism), and the audience’s interest is retained through the expectation of some scandal. Contemporary art works do not «mature» into serious traditional art, and thus are saved from its stereotypes; but on the other hand – it is a loss of turf, fear of obligation to follow a method yet overcoming a stereotyped pattern.

The other side – the ability and desire to exist in everyday environment. In traditional art everyday world is poeticized by means of romanticism, sentimentalism, and melodrama. In contemporary art, these methods are rejected – here is the inverse process. First and foremost, old stereotypes are dumped, the sacral is getting lost. Uncultivated everyday world is attractive by its incompleteness, openness to different interpretation, potential to move away from hackneyed story lines and themes. This is the most arcane side of contemporary art for the truest philistines. In a rough everyday world (not sentimentally neat hamlets or romantically desolated ponds), the lack of artistic desire to be understandable in habitual context is declared as an aesthetic standard.

Ulan Japarov’s project «Escape» is an escape from one form into another. This escape doesn’t seem to be amenable to verbal definitions of traditional assessment. This resistance to be comprehended, escape behind the horizon of comprehension – is an act of impulse not calculation. Ambitions remain but there is no desire to continue traditions. And the plastique dominates here because the goal of the project is not to be caught in the net of verbal definitions. There are many projects of contemporary art whose main idea can be conveyed verbally – no necessity to see the project itself; but this case evaded such extreme conceptualization. To «understand» this project, you have to «look at» it. In a computer collage «Landscape of Paradise» of Alexander Ugay and Roman Maskalev, a sense of transience of the habitual marginal environment is reinforced by inclusion of African motives into the image. There is not any attempt to make an idea original: the project is impossible in traditional art of easel painting but quite possible in virtual space of «television» colors. The very fact – «done by a contemporary artist» – makes these species acceptable and significant. Marcel Duchamp made people peer into the «improper» thing: he brought a pissoir into museum exploiting the meaning of the notion (the museum is a place where people peer into things trying to comprehend, and, if it’s incomprehensible – they don’t show it). The status of a piece of art is taken advantage of, and an audience looks at it and sees it with different eyes.

And the third component of mastering environment is a strange yet sincere gesture, a blend of sentimentalism and irony. Involvement in the process through the unconscious act of a soul, naïve action (instead of stepping aside, alienation of mind in postmodernism), but it’s not propaganda, not propaganda leaflets calling for action. In contemporary art, the call is modest and masked as intellectual games, given that art is not social and political journalism.

Impact on an environment transforming well-known Soviet symbols is in the work of Valery Ruppel «Inventory of a Yellow Album. » Irony over desire of a human being to keep everything in sight becomes an act of banal inventory, but unsophisticated obstinacy of the author makes to think of another, deeper meaning, – this is a gesture of disagreement about wastefulness of the modern life style. This is both the absurd of the Soviet bureaucracy and nostalgia for times when everything was retained in reports. Inventory of this type is akin to the great phrase «We are responsible for those whom we tamed» – for our possessions, wooden frames, even for a piece of paper. We are responsible for what we create – too banal and pompous phrase, and a different approach to a noble idea. The author does not put his personal signature – he puts an inventory number. An object called «The Hole for the Hero» simply suggests to a viewer to sit on his piece of art created on the top of the hill, a toilet, and admire the scenery. The great nature, an honor of the country … and – the hole. But it’s also an important thing, and we should address not only pompous festivals so endeared by our officials but also fix up some utilities. And this is art, not a horrid thing, not denigration, not banality. The banality of the meaning is overcome by professional performance, and a multitude of other related associations: simple call is masked as shocking irony. «Open the Door» installation created in Kyrgyzstan by the Austrian artist Lizzy Mayrl seems to be merely cute and funny joke: on the door leading to nowhere is the call; painted pathway and additionally bestrewn with flowers. There is not reason to waste time on creation of paintings when you can use a situation with a built-in door, and footsteps are still intact. Thus it shows that art is not a decoration but the repair of the soul; and an artist’s work in surroundings is the call for conviviality. It is not always heard, understood and accepted – it often happens – but paradoxically, morals as a result of ironical and shocking method becomes part and parcel of art all over again.

Creating not for museums and galleries, but working directly for life – this is an area of vanguard – contemporary art in the culture of the republic. Oftentimes an image of an environment is not ‘manufactured,’ but quoted as its everyday unappealing component, as a stand-alone aesthetic object; it allows contemporary art to humanize without excessive beautification. In principle, it is this environment that was an everyday visual image of the epoch, the closest to reality. In contemporary art: what is interesting is a daily routine not the pomposity of festivals; freedom of choice of themes against elitist division into artistic and inartistic objects; and the last but not least, a desire to get out of art’s domain to serve some real purposes, at least theoretically.

An Image of a Human
In contemporary art works, a human acts in a marginal environment as an outcast and it’s represented as meaningless acts, hollowness of a milieu and inconsistency of contacts. A method of a paradox in habitual combinations and revealing the absurdity of a standard situation is used in expressions. An artist’s actions are spontaneous and impulsive even to himself. They do not easily lend themselves to logic, and he leaves an audience to comment on his work.

Ulan Japarov foolishly mows grass like a schizophrenic in a piece called «Mower». Contextually orange t-shirt on green grass and actions are depressing by their uselessness. But it’s not all that simple. An action is open to various interpretations and any arguments here would be irrelevant. The point is that a human being is interpreted as an individual, sensible, and independent entity: it does not need any explanations of the meaning of actions, experiences and chewing over the substance of the subject. An author raises questions; and makes an audience think. He states a fact; and here it would not be artistic to laden it with a trend.
Sultan Bokonbaev in the work «You Can Get Used to Any Smell» depicts himself not as a portrait of an artist, a philosopher, and a poet preoccupied with actual problems of modernity – but as deformed photos of foolish faces in strange situations by computer. Readiness to any changes is positioned in funny interpretation. Anecdote and easiness of performance, fluffiness and novelty of a form interpreted not as color, composition, texture – this is elemental – but an effective method to declare own ideas.
The value of an intellectual game, free, unconstrained by any conventions and regulations, is not always obvious; it took the events of 24 March to happen to make such actions as «I Am on My Own» of Ernest Abdrazakov emerge. Contemporary art has been able to react promptly to the «night of looting», a fact of the national shame, without artistic desire to create the everlastingly imperishable; straightforwardly, without moans and fear. The most remarkable thing here is that the image of an artist becomes the one of a citizen with an active position in life. This is the art’s response in artistic form to events from the citizen’s vantage point not a politician’s, not in the limelight, not on parade of ready-made insights. Installation of Shaarbek Amankul «Altar» displayed in the shopping center was shattered by looters in the night of 24 March. Such thing could have happened both to a painting and a sculpture, and such fact had possibly taken place in the past, but in contemporary art a piece of art tends to become part and parcel of real life. And by shattering the «Altar» a crowd of looters has taken part in artistic action, making clear what is considered to be an altar. Not the patriarchal past, and future prosperity – the mere euphoria of absurd acts in the present. A terrible diagnosis of modern life.

Only free art in a free country becomes responsible, and perhaps along with contemporary art the renewed notion of a civic position will return to our culture. Pseudo intellectual jokes of jaded intellectuals have grown into the position of a citizen in art – it’s not a newcomer outcast, not a sly careerist exploiting sacral myths; and not a cozy conformist ironically observing the events from a safe distance. Adherence to principles of contemporary art turned out to be fruitful. The only important thing is a social problem, an active stance of an artist: a form, artistry, even the uniqueness of content does not matter. Irony, and modernistic «colorful» presentation of the material saves from brusqueness, or asperity of performance. Images of contemporary art turned out to be embedded in artistic milieu, thus making impossible to imagine a full picture of the first fifteen years of independence. They do not take sides and except the authors’ ambitions they do not imply any trends. They snatch a situation fixing intangible impressions, impossible to verbalize, and the plastique in such works becomes most striking and expressive. It pushed contemporary art to the forefront of the visual culture of the past Epoch.

Contemporary art is the most alternative to official tastes and it took on a role of an outrageous art leading to another position. Contemporary art becomes a place where the key social projects get realized. By and large the actual art has visualized all revolutionary events in Kyrgyzstan having justified its name. But after the 24 March events, the soundness of these ambitions is being regularly tested out. Actions of meetings and self-immolation turned out to be more shocking, and the outcasts in politics – more topical. In the fall of 2005, in the basement quarters of the main square of the capital an exhibition entitled «In the Shades of Heroes» had been taking place. The exhibition has demonstrated that the principles of actuality of contemporary art now in Kyrgyzstan became questionable and its representatives have really wound up in the shades of real heroes of authentic political shows. It became clear that a critique in contemporary art at times is destructive and righteous indignation of social projects oftentimes turns into social irresponsibility. In the situation of political upheavals, contemporary art has grown dumb. Moreover, there is danger that contemporary art will turn into a part of the postmodernist project, be relegated to a position of export agent attaining visibility only through its clichéd pretentiousness of new-fangled forms.

[1] It’s important to note that a term «contemporary art» in Russian language art criticism has been accepted to denote the notion of «modern/ contemporary art» and is not considered quite accurate. The more accurate term would sound «actual art» or «context art». This phenomenon sticks to the vanguard role throwing away the old content, i.e., painting, drawing, and sculpture. De facto freeing creative energy of borders of types and genres, contemporary art becomes the art of new technologies using objects, video, text, sound, and even an author. Definition is hampered because the phenomenon is always trying to slip through frames and oftentimes the pieces bewilder both an audience and critics: intriguing by the novelty is part and parcel of a quasi-show. By and large, it’s safe to say that the label of contemporary art has become an umbrella for everything that do not fit the traditional schemes: so here is both charlatanism and revelation. In this context we can add that in our contemporary art the interpretation of a problem of a form is different from modernism: what is important is context, concept and topicality, while a piece of art may resemble hastily made slipshod signboard. [2] Bulletin «±@b>». Startling, illustrative fact, given that traditional art in an independent state does not have (and never had) its own print mouthpiece. [3] It should be noted that in the West – it is a reaction to an accuracy and sleekness of a narrow-minded way of life. We, not spoiled by the Soviet service, perceive such a form as something of a «black humor». As the time passes, the public more favorably accepts such a textural «extreme».
Photo

Affordability of technical equipment and the Internet challenged photography: there is danger that photography in Kyrgyzstan will become an art of haphazard artistic fortunes. In Soviet Kirghizia photography was primarily lyricism and reportage. In the independence epoch the composition resources seem to be exhausted, and development of artistry becomes a matter of technology and stage élan. Landscape photography demonstrating the unique nature and patriarchal mores and … using standard methods remains a blending factor. And only rarely one can overcome this common trend.
Erkin Boljurov’s Myths
The stage photography characteristics are most vivid in Erkin Boljurov’s works. In a series of works created on the movie stages [1] an artist were able to create a stand-alone plastique image. Besides original ethnographic motives, a photographer managed to record the distinctive lyricism. It was not movie frames: indeed, the movie production was a collective endeavor by a film director, an artist, and a camera man, but photographs have fixed another image – positive without negative, without a drama of a movie story. A glorious mood without story line conflicts and intensity of dialogues – «mute» plastique – becomes the major line of the stage photography of the Epoch. It is not deliberate embellishment or glossing over: there are limits to presentational genre. Neatly aligned visual chain is getting clear: the dramatic trilogy of Aktan Abdykalykov – soothing social commercials – a plastique myth by Erkin Boljurov.

An accomplished realization of the positive theses can be traced in a poster entitled «Kelechegin Kenen Bolsun!» (May Your Future be Bright!). An author of the idea – Aktan Abdykalykov, designer – Emil Tilekov, photo – Erkin Boljurov. Two trends are connected here. On the one hand, we see a scheme of advertising standards: a child’s image, touchingly untied shoelaces, and an inspiring text-slogan. But a scheme should take on «flesh and blood». And without concrete work (not as a project per se, but before creating it) of many artists, photographers, film directors who build the whole mythological chain, it cannot be materialized.
An example of false mythological constructs is a series of photographs on the theme of «Maimyl» movie, which became almost a poster image of the movie, but in reality it vaguely communicates neither the idea of the movie nor the meaning of its mise-en-scene. On the photo we see a tough rocker – in the movie he is an introverted teenager; a faithful girlfriend sits behind him – in reality she is just a fellow traveler; both are heading for a new successful life – in mise-en-scene, an experienced woman masturbates a boy.
It’s interesting to compare photographs of Erkin Boljurov, sketches to the movie and «Maimyl» movie frames. The film director Aktan Abdykalykov invited well-known painters Erkin Saliev and Jylkychy Jakypov to work as movie artists. Stage process, movie’s backroom creative processes could become a subject of a serious research. Here we can only give examples and refer to the differences in approaches in gradation: painting – photography – movie. In the movie, there is no space of the sketches and lyricism of photography. The works of painters and a photographer hold another story line core, though not novel which was not realized in the movie product. The movie strives to be tougher, and perhaps it was unnecessary action.

Reportage Photo as a Social Project The 24 March events and the previous history of political confrontation have provided a rich material for photography in a reportage genre. The sum of interesting results developed an art of social photography in the republic’s post-Soviet cultural space. The most outstanding works were created by such photographers as Sagyn Ailchiev, Erkin Boljurov, Nina Gorshkova, Alimjan Jorobaev, Vyacheslav Oseledko, Vladimir Pirogov, Igor Sapozhnikov, Alexander Fedorov. Among many successes we can note the one of Vladimir Pirogov. In 2003 he became a laureate of WorldPressPhoto for reportage photography about the meeting.

The authorities behave correctly and want to avoid conflicts but now the meeting participants are not happy with such a situation. Why? A question is not addressed in this work. But it seems like the plastique has caught a feeling indescribable by logic. Search and movement, complexities of development and easiness of conflict, the deadlock of tragicomic situation is indeed the prescience: the militia is very correct – an old man remains too adamant.

Reportage photography develops in leaps and bounds impartially recording a visual environment. The summary portrait of the Epoch has been created here. There is a multitude of examples when a master overcomes indifference of equipment, but oftentimes a documentary photo registers accidental, untypical things; arresting a moment creates a deformed representation of reality without any photo editing. [2] Sensible selection is needed, but the selection principles are still unclear without clarification of the position and opposition, ideology and tendency. And not to miss an opportunity, the support of texts, ideology of texts is needed. The whole culture of Kyrgyzstan has been impacted by contemporary art. The very works of contemporary art are often fixed by photographs. A set of a project series is collected supplemented by an explanatory text – and there is the new aesthetics that allows classify a photo-project as a contemporary art phenomenon. [3] Such a genre faceting revitalized social photography. And this is a version of development – there are neither shocking details nor social caricature – they use a paradox, irony, and subtexts; polysemanticism without tendentiousness; philosophical renunciation and dramatic tension. And then photography grows into reportage, acquiring the meaning of full-fledged art. However, there are also some unique instances where the plastique is the key and does not need any explanations (although an interpretation is always required).

A Circle – a New Reality
In a photo-project of Shailoo Jekshenbaev «A Circle» the texture of adobe– the texture of patriarchy – is not perceived as something lyrical, there is no customary romanticizing. On photos, there is no rural culture, but rather a circle of «illegal» private expropriators of land around the city. A village, striped of social perspectives, socially humiliated, nestles up to the city, closer to the authorities and easy money. Trying to resemble a capital, with its thorny design, it brings in alien elements into the capital. It is an autonomous city doesn’t evoke affection for the past – it is shown as a new form of reality. The real feeling is seen through the dispassionateness – an author is not philosophizing, he just plays with forms, as if he were playing with kids’ bricks, perceiving new material only within the borders of the aesthetical: a social project grows into an artistic image. A familiar theme – «traditions and the modernity» – is solved paradoxically and wrapped up in the past Epoch. Now one can expect emergence of conceptual spaces of glamorous office buildings and restaurants with lacquered walls from adobe bricks. [1] Erkin Boljurov – a photographer of almost all movies of Aktan Abdykalykov. Shailo Djekshenbaev worked with a film director Marat Sarulu on movies «Mandala» (1998), «My Brother, Silk Road» (2001), «Ascent» (2002). Erkin Boljurov and Shailo Djekshenbaev, quite accomplished photographers, working in movie production, they become authors of the plastique image. This is new and common phenomenon in our cinematograph – oftentimes the plastique is tackled by a photographer together with an artist.
[2] For instance, a yawning member of parliament is a nice texture – not necessarily an idler. Interpretation of the parliamentary consensus as a boring matter causing yawning is not acceptable anymore.
[3] Photographers of the republic reluctantly use texts, as has been done in the German photographer Gerg Kurtinger’s project entitled «Eleven Years Later. Kyrgyzstan Before and After the End of Socialism». The project was presented in Bishkek in 2006. Characters shot by the photographer in 1992 are compared to the same personae in 2003. Photographs accompanied by the author’s explanations and texts of the personages have quite an impact on the audience.
Epilogue
Oftentimes in the works of art we only find an ideal pursued by people. And it’s not always possible to check the difference between the representation and the reality. Understanding goals pursued by specific projects, one can find out: what has been achieved, failed and what problems hampered full realization of the country’s creative powers. Culture reflects the time, and the Time strives to resemble its reflection. Free and natural flow of this process brings about great results. It should be admitted that the reflection of the past Epoch was blurry and efforts to resemble its own ideal character were vain. But the process has plunged into a catastrophe, and the first fifteen years of independence have not become «A Kingdom of Distorting Mirrors», when the visual shell reflects something absolutely contradictory to its essence. The outline of the real image of the last Epoch does match its ideal image. Freedom [1] allowed collective formulation of complex of ideas and suggestions, and creative groping for the way that lead to success. It helped shape full-fledged visual culture whose theses are the lack of conflict, respect for traditions, and openness to innovations in arts

Given diversity, some trends were officially more replicated, and others kept a low profile. Along with honesty of some statements, there are many far-fetched mythological constructions. But is there a sum of forces that leads to a shared entity? Is there an integral visual image of the Epoch? In the midst of the opposite cultural phenomena, de facto moving in diametrically opposing directions forces, the visual culture of the Epoch offered quite acceptable solutions, did not plunge into the dictate of a single true line; accomplished the major condition of development – diversity. And there is no need to look for the ultimate image: there is a major line, and there are alternatives. And the achievements of the past period – different phenomena add up to the whole one like oppositions that enrich each other.

The official image of a new country has been shaping in Kyrgyzstan during the initial fifteen years. Some people may object this image on many counts, and perhaps many won’t be willing associate themselves with it. This image is possibly somewhat infantile to be self-critical; and patriotism is a bit childish and spontaneous. The image is too declarative and egotistic, and does not show mature skills to live without being in the center and loved. But a merit of some countries’ cultures is in realization of being part of the world process that looks for needed formulae in a quite conflict prone environment. This condition was met by the Epoch.

The uniqueness of the first president’s epoch is in confirmation of the fact that cultivation of the positive in artistic environment does have its flip side: optimism cannot be declaratively reproduced. For the generation grown in the situation of deprived independence, lyricism, gentleness and amicability become synonyms of a weakness.

Is it true that on 24 March 2005 the old regimes’ cultural policies have been rejected along with that regime? This epoch had abruptly ended not because its cultural policy was wrong: most likely, there are processes behind this period and the borders of Kyrgyzstan.

[1] It doesn’t matter that freedom was gained because of the state’s weakness. It seemed that cultural policies became the Cinderella – as a matter of fact, the state was not able, as had hitherto been the case, financially and organizationally support old structures and effectively manage new ones. In practice, what was the proved is that culture is shaped by people – and goods are dispensed by bureaucrats and the absurdity of the situation is in pettiness of the dispensed goods.

We saved phonetics of the Soviet epoch in context: when we talk about the Soviet times – Kirghizia, modern pronunciation is Kyrgyzstan.

The author thanks Talip Ibraimov, Evgeniy Boikov, Furkat Tursunov for help and informational support.