Uzbek Journeys: Tashkent and Tbilisi Exhibitions - Dilyara Kaipova Ends the Year with a Flourish

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Tashkent and Tbilisi Exhibitions - Dilyara Kaipova Ends the Year with a Flourish

Central Asia's most innovative textile artist, Dilyara Kaipova, has ended 2019 with two sensational solo exhibitions.

Red deer and Gorbachev. Worked folk art suzani by Dilyara Kaipova

The Tashkent exhibition "North Lights of the South" was held at Zero Line Gallery, Tashkent's premier exhibition space.

Kaipova explored the colonization of Uzbekistan - often referred to as "the south" during the Russian and Soviet periods - and the specific character of these periods.

From the 1960s through the 1990s, traditional naive embroidery forms were embellished with heroes of films, illustrations from Soviet magazines or postcards, quotes or verses of their own essays.

In reference to the Gorbachev piece above, Kaipova stitched Gorbachev into the embroidery as a marker of the time and place of the famous "jump into the void." What are the shifts that have occurred in traditional cultures since then?

As well as embroideries, Kaipova created chapans (Uzbek traditional coat) reflecting this theme.

Chapan "Pushkin" of cotton quilted fabric

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Embroidery on fabric "Gorky" - Maxim Gorky was the most published author of the USSR

Chapan "Sputnik" - When the Soviets began using Sputnik in their propaganda, they emphasized pride in the achievement of Soviet technology, arguing that it demonstrated the Soviets' superiority over the West. People were encouraged to listen to Sputnik's signals on the radio and to look out for Sputnik in the night sky.

Kaipova's sensibility meshes well with the street art and fashion scene of Tbilisi, current European capital of cool. It is at the glorious Georgian State Silk Museum until 16 December. If you are in Georgia now this is a must-see exhibition. It is made possible through a travel grant of the Goethe Institute's program Kultur in Bewegung (Culture in motion).

All textiles that are produced as exhibition objects are ikats, handwoven according to Kaipova’s sketches by the masters from Margilan in the Fergana Valley.

The exhibition builds on her earlier work about national self-identification, the intervention of "alien bodies" into national culture and the urgent globalization processes of the modern world. The exhibition also includes Kaipova’s photos and a slide show of art objects in the interiors or exteriors of traditional Uzbek houses.