Until the 14th of August, 2022, Jameel Arts Centre is holding A Space of Celebration, the solo exhibition by Russian-born artist Taus Makhacheva. It features the art pieces she created in the past thirteen years.
Being the granddaughter of Rasul Gamzatov — Avar poet, author, journalist and political activist, Makhacheva grew up in Moscow. Thus, one of the central topics she explores in her art is what happens when different cultures meet. With her roots in the Caucasus region of Dagestan, the artist has been always looking at the making and remaking of history and heritage, as the region was undergoing its post-Soviet recomposition.
Makhacheva’s approach to art making can be characterised by a sense of irony and satire. In most of her performances, the body serves as “a supporting structure” challenged in out of bounds situations. It’s illustrated, for example, by her work Tightrope (2015), which was created in collaboration with Asul Abakarov, a descendant of a Dagestani dynasty of tightrope walkers. The performance takes place in Dagestan. Abakarov walks back and forth across a tightrope between two peaks. He carries with him copies of sixty-one Dagestani artworks; they were selected by Makhacheva from the Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts. Here, tightrope is a visual metaphor for the uncertain survival of cultural heritage. It also reflects on museums’ responsibility to protect culturally valuable objects.
Taus Makhacheva is a Russian Post War & Contemporary artist born in 1983. She’s an alumna of Goldsmiths, University of London (2007) (BA in Fine Art). After that, she got a master’s degree in fine arts at the Royal College of Art (2013).
Her work has been displayed at the Biennial of Difficult Heritage, Volgograd (2021); Yokohama Triennale (2020); Lahore Biennale (2020); Kaunas Biennial (2019) and many other exhibitions. Her artworks are included in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the P. S. Gamzatova Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts, Makhachkala, and many others.
To get more information about the exhibition, please visit its official webpage.
You might also be interested in visiting General Behaviour by Farah Al Qasimi.
