"Postnomadic Reality" is Gulnur Mukazhanova's first solo exhibition in Moscow. Her works are deeply connected to both her place of origin and her current residence, blending traditional Eastern materials and motifs with a distinctly Western approach to presenting contemporary art. By using traditional Asian materials important for Gulnur from aesthetic, symbolic, and historical perspectives, and living in Europe, the artist addresses issues of feminism, globalization, and ethnology.
Gulnur successfully merges European and Central Asian histories. For example, the work that gives the exhibition its title, "Post-Nomadic Reality," is a dress made from scraps of burned felt. The form of the dress is borrowed from traditional Eastern clothing (chapan), but in the artist's interpretation, it takes on an abstract appearance. In her series "Global Society," Gulnur creates white masks from felt, a material traditional to Kazakhstan, to cover the faces of her photographic subjects. This technique conceals and erases the identities of the models, making them faceless and challenging the viewer to guess where the photographs were taken and which society the depicted individuals belong to.
Gulnur successfully merges European and Central Asian histories. For example, the work that gives the exhibition its title, "Post-Nomadic Reality," is a dress made from scraps of burned felt. The form of the dress is borrowed from traditional Eastern clothing (chapan), but in the artist's interpretation, it takes on an abstract appearance. In her series "Global Society," Gulnur creates white masks from felt, a material traditional to Kazakhstan, to cover the faces of her photographic subjects. This technique conceals and erases the identities of the models, making them faceless and challenging the viewer to guess where the photographs were taken and which society the depicted individuals belong to.
