YAY Gallery announces Azerbaijani artist’s participation in 12th edition of Avesta Art

YAY Gallery is pleased to announce the participation of Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov in the 12th edition of Avesta Art in Avesta, Sweden.

Alakbarov's shadow installations - "The Flying Man", "Miniature" and "Show Me Art" - are included in the exhibition of Swedish and international artists which opens on May 24th, 2014 and will run May 25 - September 7, 2014.

Eleven contemporary national and international artists from Sweden, Finland, the UK, the Czech Republic, Italy and Azerbaijan are exhibiting at Avesta Art 2014. Participating artists are Rashad Alakbarov, Cecilia Cronelid, Tom Hunter, Alessandro Lupi, Jarmo Mäkilä, Jens Peterson-Berger, Veronika Psotková, Aleksandra Stratimirovic, Hanna Vihriälä, Sissi Westerberg, Olov Ylinenpää

The exhibition's name "The Process" refers to all the layers in which these processes take place great and small. They can be experienced during the creation of art both in theory and in practice just as the heavy industrial process is brought life and can be seen.

For the first time in Sweden Rashad Alakbarov from Azerbaijan is participating with his electrifying illumination art.

Alakbarov graduated from the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts in 2001, where he specialized in Decorative Arts, and he has worked in various media including painting, sculpture as well as stage design, video art and interior design. Since 2001, the use of shadows in large scale installations have become the main direction of the artist's conceptual work and have gained him international notoriety and acclaim.

Alakbarov's installations for Avesta Art are created from carefully positioned iron components which when illuminated reveal an image or words on the corresponding surface. "I want to encourage people to open their senses," says the artist. "Shadow was the world's first picture. By projecting human emotions, ambitions and fears through the world of shadows, it is as we make them more understandable and inoffensive. Tenderness, irony and allegory shine through with unexpected clarity. The simplest objects assume a special beauty."

Alakbarov has shown his work at the 52nd and 55th Venice Biennale and 55th Venice Biennale collateral exhibition "Love Me, Love Me Not", now being shown at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku. He recently completed a solo exhibition of his work at the Baku MOMA. His artwork has been widely exhibited in Europe and is held in private collections in Azerbaijan, Italy, Turkey and Russia. Avesta Art is Alakbarov's debut in Sweden.

The 2014 edition of Avesta Art seeks to create an aesthetic and conceptual dialogue where the past, present and future are linked though contemporary art within the space of the former industrial ironworks of the city. Avesta Art began as a biennial exhibition in 1995 and from 2011 it has been held every year. In 2013, the exhibition received almost 20,000 visitors.

Rashad Alakbarov is represented by YAY Gallery in Baku, Azerbaijan. YAY Gallery was established in September 2012 as an addition to the broader initiative conceived by YARAT Contemporary Art Organisation in order to support and promote the development of Azerbaijani contemporary art both on a national and international level. The gallery is commercial but for not-for-profit purposes, and all potential revenue from the art sales is channelled into supporting YARAT initiatives and the artists. Founded in 2011 by Aida Mahmudova, YARAT is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally.

EXHIBITION DATES: 25th of May - 7th of September, 2014, 11:00 - 18:00

OPENING: Saturday, 24th of May, 12:00 - 16:00


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