Launch of the exhibition ‘Gulnur Mukazhanova. Memory of Hope’

La Biennale di Venezia inaugurated the exhibition Gulnur Mukazhanova. Memory of Hope, curated by Luigia Lonardelli, in Sala delle Colonne at Ca' Giustinian, headquarters of the Biennale in San Marco, open from 10 December 2024 to 10 February 2025.

The exhibition represents the second stage of the Special Project by La Biennale di Venezia’s Historical Archive, titled The Wind Makes the Sky. La Biennale di Venezia on the Traces of Marco Polo, which retraces Marco Polo’s travels on the 700th anniversary of his death (1324 – 2024). Istanbul will be the third city touched by the project in the fall of 2025.

During the first stage in Hangzhou – with the exhibition titled The Perfect Path, inaugurated on November 9^th this year at the CAA Art Museum and visited by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella – the project concentrated on the latest generation of Chinese artists who are searching for their own personal path. This Venetian stage instead considers a geographical area traversed by a lesser-known journey, that of

Niccolò and Matteo Polo, Marco’s father and uncle. During their early explorations, they conceived the notion that they could push further east, travelling across the wide-open steppes of Kazakhstan to follow one of the infinite routes that, from Ukek to Bukhara, led to the Far East. The desert areas on the Eurasian border have always constituted a natural border and for thousands of years their populations have been at the centre of a process of mediation connecting the European and Asian areas.

The protagonist of this exhibition, artist Gulnur Mukazhanova, born in Kazakhstan and based in Berlin for over ten years, brings the knowledge and tradition of textile art to Venice. Her artistic practice layers wool, silk fibres and ancient fabrics in a loose and delicate weave that evokes impressions of the Far East, blending decorative motifs and materials that are quite distant, often to the point of dissonance, which her hands marry to achieve harmony.

“Like a waterline, her intervention pervades the entire space –explains the Curator Luigia Lonardelli–, following a design inspired by the sign of infinity and the sinuous lines of the dragon-serpent, an element which in Asian culture conjures the energies of the earth, completely redefining Sala delle Colonne and absorbing its columns within a total reading of the space”.

“Mukazhanova is part of the generation that made its international debut inside the Central Asia Pavilion (hosted by La Biennale di Venezia in the editions held from 2005 to 2013) which explored the experimentations of a series of artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, reflecting upon the bonds that run through the artistic identities of this region and how the memory of the pre-Soviet identities might be reshaped in building these young countries”.

“Born in the 1980s, the artist saw the Soviet Union fall apart during her childhood and watched her country build its independence during her early teenage years. Her work reflects a shifting identity that does not seek to define categories or borders, but embraces the complexity of the visual references which surrounded her as she grew up. The artist retrieves the nomadic traditions and mass-market fabrics brought into the country during the Soviet era, which she matches, in continuous lateral moves, with pieces of fabric made in China. In this complete absence of iconographies, colours and tactile values, Mukazhanova finds an unexpected possibility of material and chromatic combination, recreating expansive surfaces that are difficult to take in at a glance, but are reminiscent of the vast horizons of the Eurasian steppes”.

Like in Hangzhou, this phase in Venice is again accompanied by the stage created by the artist Cevdet Erek from Istanbul, commissioned by La Biennale to follow these travels.  In Venice the artist redesigned the stage, presented in the Laboratory of the Arts at Ca’ Giustinian, drawing inspiration from the boatyard space in which it is located: its architecture has been disassembled to highlight its structural elements, exposing its base components which are strewn around the space, before departing again on their journey towards Istanbul, the next stop for The Wind Makes the Sky.

“Like a modern caravan transiting through the lands across which it travels, emphasises the Curator, Amfibio is a temporary setting in which to rest, stop and meet.  A modular space of encounter and performance, conceived to be permeable and to be transformed, both in its structure and audio system, to adapt to the architectural traditions and rhythms of the places through which it travels. Amfibio has in its title its dual nature, a creature that can live in water or on shore, while the root “amfi” carries within it the meaning of being around or crossing through”.

The graphic identity and the design of the trademark for this Special Project is by Headline, Rovereto (Italy). The design was developed using three-dimensional geometric elements that form the symbol of the Dao. A visual choice that is not just aesthetic, but profoundly conceptual: the geometric forms symbolise the complex and articulated path of the journey, evoking the idea of moving forward, of progress.

From 10 to 19 December 2024 and from 14 January to 10 February 2025.
Free guided tours on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, upon reservation, at stated times (approximate duration 1 hour).

For schools, universities, adult groups and families.
min. 10 – max 25 participants, available in Italian and English.

Reservations*: book your visit at least 48 hours prior your visit:

Adults, families and universities: https://web21.labiennale.org/biennale/marcopolo-adulti

Schools: please contact promozione@labiennale.org

*The service is not available from 21 December to 12 January.
Requests received after 20 December will be processed starting from 7 January.

Info:
promozione@labiennale.org

Thanks to Brunello Cucinelli, supporter of the project The Wind Makes the Sky. La Biennale di Venezia on the Traces of Marco Polo.