Style.Uz Art Week 2013: round-up
October 29, 2013
The highlights of this year’s Art Week include:
The 7th Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art, which was made up of 41 projects, among them 11 exhibitions, 6 workshops and international conference ‘Various Cultures, One World’.
The Biennale showcased works by around 100 artists from Azerbaijan, Greece, Russia, France, Algeria, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hong Kong, Georgia, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, South Korea, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Ethiopia, Israel, Italy, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the USA, Turkey, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the Philippines, Sweden, Estonia and Japan. The Biennale also presented artworks by around 130 Uzbekistan artists.
The Biennale is dedicated to raising the broad local public’s awareness of fresh trends in contemporary global fine art while promoting Tashkent as a regional art powerhouse, creating opportunities for international cultural ties and international dialog, and putting the spotlight on the achievements and potential of national arts. It also works to ramp up international cultural relations, to enhance intercultural dialog and highlight new names in modern art and the achievements of various countries in fine art.
Besides the Biennale, the Week has included: the Traditional Art, Fashion and Design Exposition, solo exhibitions, video installation ‘Triptych… Architecture.Music.Dance’ (Uzbekistan-Russia), Japanese artist Noriko Yamamoto’s installation ‘Weltformel - Theory of Everything’, British artist Nick Sayers’ exhibition and ‘Zero Waste’ installation, a Chinese comic art exhibition, and Japanese exhibition ‘The Last Samurai – Mysterious Japan’.
The Third Tashkent International Film Forum ‘Golden Guepard’ took place on October 19-24. While the film forum has a permanent motto ‘Civilizations of the 21st Century: Dialog of Cultures’, which mirrors its long-term strategy, it is annually given a new slogan that reveals the concept of each edition of the forum and serves as a criterion for selecting entries submitted. The slogan of this year’s film forum is the Latin phrase Per speculum et in aenigmate – "in an enigma by means of a mirror".
The film forum was attended by professionals from over 50 European, Asian, African and North and South American countries.
The film forum drew over 500 entries, with the selection committee having selected 11 feature films, 13 short films and 10 animated films.
The Golden Guepard Film Forum included an international conference titled ‘National Cinema in a Global World’, 23 workshops by film industry professionals and 10 press conferences. The film forum screened 16 in-competition films and 23 out-of competition films sent in from South Korea, India, the Czech Republic and France as well as documentaries. A total of 75 events were held as part of this year’s film forum.
The jury for this year’s film forum was chaired by prominent award-winning Chinese film director and scriptwriter Zhang Yuan.
The Fourth International Festival ‘Theatre.UZ/2013’ included 27 projects: 4 workshops, collaborative productions, and plays by international troupes as well as Tashkent and Uzbek regional theaters.
The Week’s fashion section was made up of 17 catwalk shows by big-name international fashion labels and designers such as Stefano Ricci, Dsquared2, Jo No Fui and VLOV, Underground youth fashion show (featuring collections by 26 local fashion designers, National Dress Festival (15 local designers), General Défilé by Dom Stilya as well as jewelry shows by Japan’s Mikimoto and Malaysia’s Rafflesia. All told, Style.Uz Art Week 2013 presented 65 collections by fashion designers from China, France, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Spain and Uzbekistan.
The music section, which is one of the distinguishing features of Tashkent Art Week, presented 4 concerts: by Russian celebrated conductor and violist Yuri Bashmet, Russian pop star Valeriya, as well as the premiere of the musical ‘The Lion King: The Return’ and Live Show ‘Kings of the Stage’ by The Lion King Music and Theater Studio, which gave itself the goal of discovering and training talented children, who will then be supported and promoted throughout their artistic pathway.
The Charity Gala Dinner, organized annually by the National Breast Cancer Association of Uzbekistan (NBCAU) as part of Style.Uz, was attended by around 500 people. The event included an auction, which raised funds for the benefit of breast cancer patients in Uzbekistan. Gulnara Karimova, the initiator of the project, presented gratitude diplomas to partner organizations, tickets to health sanatoriums for 10 women, and certificates to representatives of three regional cancer care clinics that will entitle them to receive Damas ambulances free of charge. The gala dinner featured performances by Russian folk singer Nadezhda Babkina, Yalla music group and several Uzbek pop stars.
Over 5,500 young people attended 37 workshops taught by artists, film critics, film actors, film directors and producers, cameramen, playwrights, photographers, stylists and fashion experts throughout Style.Uz Art Week.
Four conferences: international conference ‘Innovation and Creativity: International Cooperation in Fashion Development’, organized in conjunction with the British Council; international conference ‘Various Cultures, One World’; international conference ‘National Cinema in a Global World’; and a press conference with Style.Uz organizers, guests and participants.
Style.Uz 2013 also saw the opening ceremony of a Ceramics and Porcelain Art Studio set up by IJOD Association of Artists, At Critics and Craftsmen. The idea of creating the studio was floated in 2012 at the closing ceremony of Bazar Art Fair, a project overseen by Fund Forum that is dedicated to preservation and revival of various types of Uzbek traditional art. To this end, Uzbek fashion label Guli made available a grant for the creation of the Ceramics and Porcelain Art Studio as a tribute to late prominent porcelain artist and sculptor Shakhnoza Muminova (1949-2011), who made a massive contribution to the development of art in Uzbekistan.
For a third time in a row Tashkent Art Week has included an International Hairstyling Competition, which has seen around 70 masters from beauty salons in Uzbekistan, Russia and Kazakhstan demonstrate their skills at Tashkent’s Center of National Arts. The members of the jury for the competition have included world-class professionals, who have emerged as winners of international hairstyling competitions across the world.
Style.Uz Art Week is a unique opportunity for many young artists, fashion designers and other professionals with limited financial resources to demonstrate their skills. Moreover, talented young professionals and craftspeople working to revive ancient fabric weaving techniques are awarded grants. The bulk of tickets to fashion shows, exhibitions, concerts and workshops held as part of Tashkent Art Week are distributed among young people free of charge.
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