Victories and accomplishments of YARAT! Contemporary Art Space in 2012

18 successful projects covering various issues...Tens of artists who have had their voices heard thanks to cooperating with us...Constant partners, namely Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Creative Stage of ÜNS Theatre, Old City Administration and many others...YARAT! has achieved a great deal in the year and a half since the start of its operation and yet we have a lot more to do. The results of our activities are as follows:

SUPPORTING CONTEMPORARY ART

YARAT! non-profit organization was established in 2011 by our compatriot, Mrs. Aida Makhmudova. It strives to support the contemporary art of Azerbaijan as well as to promote Azerbaijani artists' interest in the country and abroad, while at the same time it aims at creating new space for intercultural dialogue.

"On Soz" project (October 6 - November 6, 2011) was a start-up one and YARAT! included in it 27 artists of different backgrounds and world views. What united the project participants was their courage and longing for generating a new sort of art that would be released from the bonds of formality and thus presented to the residents of Baku. The project title itself - "Foreword" - implies launching something of large scale and of huge importance.

In media coverage "On Soz" exhibition was described as one of the most prominent events in the cultural life of Baku. As it was stated: "The organizers of the exhibition purposefully selected a building under construction as the venue for the event, for it symbolizes the emerging creative nature whose pattern is just getting unfolded and in the years to come emerging talents will construct a palace building it bit by bi,t until it finally gains a certain image." (October 19, 2011, www.1news.az).

Initially the project was conceived as an effort to familiarize Baku residents with actual art that just some decades ago burst out from exhibition halls and museums and, at present, is shaping the images of occidental cities. YARAT! project was a benchmark of redirection of the city of Baku towards this new art, which is tightly connected with the local residents' ideas and energy-born images.

At present, there is a pool of artists and some of them still cooperate with YARAT! on a regular basis, like Aida Makhmudova, Afat Baghirova, Arif Amirov, Ali Hasanov, Butunay Hagverdiyev, Jemma Sattar, Faig Akhmad, Fidan Seyidova, Leyla Aliyeva, Leyla Mirza, Mekhti Mammadov, Mammad Bashirov, Nail Alakbarov, Nazrin Mammadova, Nijat Burjiyev, Niyaz Najafov, Orkhan Huseynov, Ramal Kazimov, Rashad Babayev, Rashad Alakbarov, Sitara Ibrahimova, Shahin Malakzadeh.

In the spring of 2012 Bakuvians witnessed the appearance of a fundamentally new kind of exhibition in the city. 012 Baku Public Art emerged spontaneously and kept attracting the Baku residents for several months.

Now, upon completion of a year of diligent activities, we can state with certainty that we have managed to reach the objective we had set before and that everything created within the frameworks of the Festival ranks really high among other sightseeing spots in the space of megalopolis. For the last few months we have experienced a lot: searching for the precisely "correct" embodiment of creative conceptions, strong arguments over artistic values of a certain art object, great doubt about what the art pieces proposed would look like surrounded by ancient buildings (because some of the Festival artworks were installed in architectural and historic spots of the city - the Fortress, the Fountain Square, etc.). However, none of the show attendants, who visited our sites every Friday for many weeks, regardless of hard rain or unbearable heat, remained indifferent to our exhibits.

Several generations of artists who belong to various schools and techniques were linked by the Festival and that in itself is quite a rare event. The Festival collection included 21 artworks (video and photo installations, sculptural and plastic compositions, performances and a 3-D mapping laser show) and a substantial study had preceded creation of each art object, which in itself is really uncommon for our country. A Festival that managed to combine all of the stated above and allow us to feel the breath and heartbeat of the city is rightly perceived as a unique one.

The closing ceremony of 012 Baku Public Art, the Festival which filled the hearts of Bakuvians with joy thanks to the newly designed Azerbaijani art works, was held in the big hall of Nizami cinema in November 2012. Mr. Rufat Hasanov, an emerging film director, a graduate of Moscow Higher Screen Script and Film Direction Courses and alumnus of the Histrionics and Cinematography Department of Bates College, summed up the successful and fortunate outcomes of the Festival. For many months the author of the movie rigorously kept track of artists' activities ranging from generating ideas to presentation of the ready art objects. The movie is designed as a series of short interviews with the project participants and fragments of live conversation of the artists with the show attendants. The dynamic video excellently reflects the style of YARAT! Contemporary Art Space, where artworks are generated in the process of interaction between the authors, the audience and the modern life pulse.

Upon completion the Festival endowed the city with a new image and imparted us a sense of confidence not only in art`s capability to reproduce reality, but also in its potential for habitual environment transformation.

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

"Merging Bridges" project took place in Baku Museum of Contemporary Art from May 15th to July 15th and brought together 13 Azerbaijani and 12 foreign artists to one space. Among foreign participants one might mention such stars as James Turrel, Sarah Lucas, Jaap de Vries, Annie Morris, Paul Fryer, Keith Coventry as well as Idris Khan, a British artist of Iranian origin. In spite of the fact that Azeri artists had occasionally gone beyond the boundaries of national and regional exhibiting, a project of this magnitude had never occurred before "Merging Bridges". Adam Waymouth, a British artist who had previously worked with the Albert and Victoria Museum, as well as many other renowned galleries, was a co-curator of the above mentioned project.

GRIID International Festival of Photography was held in Amsterdam from May 16th to June 1st with Ms Suad Garayeva, a graduate of the London School of Economics and representative of Sotheby`s Auction House, participating as a curator. She presented a project by an emerging photographer Ilkin Huseynov, titled "Nardarani Wedding". Nearly all show visitors took notice of the unusual style of the presentation of the project. All the photographs from the series were installed in tents furnished as they would be for wedding or funeral ceremonies, thereby becoming a metaphor for the life cycle and its most crucial milestones. At present Ilkin is a very successful documentary photographer who managed to cooperate with some international organizations working to improve the social climate and living conditions in Azerbaijan and the whole of South Caucasus. Even though he is exceptionally young, he has already cooperated with eminent news agencies such as the Associated Press, Invisible Photographer, AFP, Reuters, Yahoo, CNN International, Global Journalist and Media Paran.

"Situation Stalemate" was held within the frameworks of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art from July 12th to August 12th 2012 and YARAT! specifically selected MARS Gallery as the venue for this exhibition. Three female artists from Azerbaijan - Nazrin Mammadova, Jemma Sattar and Fidan Seyidova - presented their art pieces to the sophisticated Moscow audience. A male view on inter-sex relations was represented by Reza Khazare. Both Russian and Azerbaijani media stressed the contrasting views of the authors; each artist strived to convey his/her own cultural mentality, his/her own interpretation of gender issues. The difference between them is quite natural since the girls were raised in a secular tradition, while Reza (a native of Afghanistan) was brought up in a patriarchal community. However, their artistic visions do not conflict each other but, on the contrary, they create a strange balance among themselves, like two parts of the whole, like obverse and reverse sides of a coin.

In September this year YARAT! co-organized the Christie`s exhibition held in Baku for the first time. For this occasion world famous masterpieces were brought to Baku ("The Lady and the Dog" by Pablo Picasso, "Flowers" by Andy Warhol and "Love, Love" by Damian Hirst, to name a few).

A big opening ceremony for the exhibition was held in the ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel. The coming of Christy's specialists and consultants, who just recently started to express their genuine interest in Arab, Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish art, could be taken as the key prerequisite for raising global awareness of contemporary Azerbaijani art.

At the same time, on September 22nd we opened the COMMONIST exhibition, where we managed to demonstrate the Azerbaijani artists` view on the globalizing world and the variety of challenges posed by multiculturalism. The authors of the project outlined a very wide circle of questions. Is multiculturalism an advantage or a misfortune for humankind? What is the role of women in the background of common transformations? Do things matter or not in a world of temporary fashion trends and supply excess over demand? Apart from the recognized masters like Niyaz Najafov, Ali Hasanov, Rashad Alakbarov and Makhmud Rustamov, emerging artists, Afat Bagirova, with her series of pictures "Jenny", and Vusal Rahimov with his "Black Woman" installation, also participated in the exhibition.

YARAT! started its claiming of European exhibition spaces with "Home, sweet home" exposition that recently opened in the Azeri Cultural Center in Paris. Contemporary artists generated their nucleus of Azerbaijani culture in an old French mansion constructed in 1904. Each exhibit reminded them of homeland; each art object, be it a hand-woven carpet or fancifully designed ceramic tableware, uttered words in the language they are used to hearing from earliest childhood. Moreover, some authors still wonder what alterations have already been made or are about to be made in the concept of "home".

At the 15th Islamic Art Festival in Sharja patronized by sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi, YARAT! was represented by Farid Rasulov with his "Carpet interiors", Faig Akhmad with his "Actual tradition" and Rashad Alakbarov with his solo exhibition titled "Four words about the East". Altogether 45 international and local expositions were shown during the Festival, and among the authors we can mention artists from UAE, Qatar, the Great Britain, the USA, France, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan and India (a total of 18 countries).

THE CONSTRUCTION OF OUR HOME IS FINALISED

On September 28th 2012 there was a solemn ceremony held for the opening of Yay! Gallery. Artists, culture vultures and authors of the gallery`s concept had all eagerly waited for that moment and were exceptionally excited.

YARAT! projects seek to fully and widely showcase the contemporary art of Azerbaijan and to help the Azerbaijani artists reach international scenes. Finally, all these efforts will be coordinated from one center. From the very beginning, the gallery creators decided it would be best to set as their primary task the support of the artists who had their exhibitions at the gallery. All potential revenue raised from the exhibitions will be channeled to fund new and interesting project conceptions.

The name of the gallery contains a number of meanings and senses. The word chosen as the gallery`s name possesses a miraculous force of attraction and generates a lot of connotations: "Yay" means both an ardent desire to deliver knowledge and share something crucial (originally comes from an Azeri verb "yaymaq" - "to spread, to distribute"), as well as a direct hit to the target set (originally comes from "yay" - "bow"). It also denotes the intense flowering season inherent to the sunniest period of the year - summer (originally comes from "yay" - "summer"). Hence, YARAT! had specifically and diligently worked towards the gallery opening in the last year.

The first exhibition held at the gallery, symbolically called NEXT LEVEL, united three artists - Faig Akhmad, Farid Rasulov and Elshan Ibrahimov. Each artist addresses the theme of traditional Azerbaijani carpet in his own manner. As a result, the exposition was distinguished by its eclectic approach and included regular carpets and wool installations, digital prints as a consortium of European interior, oriental ornaments and even computer games with elements of carpet decorations.

The first artist to have a solo exhibition at the gallery was Ramal Kazimov, twenty five-year old alumnus of the Azerbaijan State Academy. His paintings, "Stratification", a sculptural installation, as well as his sketches, became a real revelation and deeply impressed the visitors at the opening on November 30th. Apparently, the reason of such admiration is the extreme self-expression of the artist, who combines a magnificent performance technique with an absence of academism.

In December this year, Ramal Kazimov's solo exhibition was included in the official program of the International Biennale of Contemporary Art "Aluminium", supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. YARAT! acted as a co-organizer of the event. This year the main theme of the Biennale was Time...Time that begets idols and heroes, changes us and our priorities, bridges us and sets hindrances. The Biennale exhibitions were held in 15 Baku museums and galleries under the joint name "Faces of Time". We are really proud of the fact that "Faces of Time" managed to involve the most interesting artists, art critics and curators from Europe and Asia.

YARAT! A DIFFERENT MOVIE SPACE

At present, Future Shorts Festival is the biggest short movies Festival in the world with audiences in 90 countries. Its success originates from eight years of experiments and endeavors to bring together audiences with fundamentally different perceptions of cinematography. Since 2003 the Festival has been working on creating an international platform for moviemakers and it has helped millions of viewers feel the outcomes of its activities. Each Festival Season a new movie collection is shown, and each movie is a winner of a certain festival. In Baku, the festival was held four times at four different venues - at the creative stage of ÜNS theatre, in the hall of Nizami Cinema, in Green Theatre and in ParkCinema. Independent Movie Festival and BAFTA winners were among the films shown.

SEARCH FOR EMERGING TALENTS

YARAT! office receives interesting calls from young and gifted artists almost on a daily basis. That made us reflect on the necessity of making regular appointments with creative youngsters and bid-based selections of the best projects. ARTIM project was launched thanks to these ideas and it has already contributed to fundamental changes in the lives of emerging artists as well as helped us discover the potential of dozens of newly-emerging talents through the regularly held Open Doors days. A solo exhibition by Agil Abdullayev, first voted finalist, opened in Bisque concept boutique in July this year.

New names and talents become an integral part of YARAT! projects in no time. For instance, a second year student of the Academy of Art, Shargiyya Rahmanova, presented her superb "Back to the Future" performance along with the more experienced participants of 012 Public Art Festival.

Among the projects with the most promising emerging artists, one might mention the BacarArt one. The project gave complete moral and creative satisfaction to its participants and allowed children from disadvantaged and vulnerable families living in different regions of Azerbaijan to express themselves through art. A group of young artists that cooperates with YARAT! on a regular basis taught the fundamentals of graphics, photography and collage to the kids for a few weeks. It was simply a charity project and the exhibition held on November 20th, the International Day of Protection of Children, once again proved the general public's interest in such actions. Most of the artworks created by the children were sold and the funds raised were transferred to the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Issues, so that they could be used for the needs of families of emerging talents.

ART 21 MOVIE AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS

YARAT! was both the originator and organizer of several educational projects, including contemporary art lecture course, conceived and delivered in collaboration with Russian specialists from GTSI (Contemporary Art Center). Within the framework of the project such experts as Leonid Alexandrovich Bazhanov, Alexandra Obukhova, Tatiana Volkova, and art historian, artist and partizaning.org website editor, Anton Polsky, as well as curator of numerous exhibitions held both in Russia and Europe, Vitaliy Vladimirovich Patsyukov, delivered their lectures at the creative stage of ÜNS theatre.

At that very stage, we managed to show three newest editions of "Art in 21 century" documentary series that won the prestigious American Peabody award. The documentary series was initially conceived by PBS channel in 2001 as an attempt to convey contemporary art to mass audiences. At present, the series enjoys wide popularity in 50 countries, and it was precisely YARAT! that brought it to Azeri viewers for the first time. All shows were followed by comments of Mr. Jahangir Salimkhanov, a recognized musical expert and a member of European Cultural Parliament.

NEW AREAS RECLAMATION

In November this year YARAT! participated in BakuTel - 2012 exhibition, together with the biggest international companies and leaders in global telecommunication and IT. Our stand installed in the exhibition hall could be interpreted as a kind of evidence of a solid bond between contemporary art and hi-tech.

However, we believe our principal victory and the key accomplishment of YARAT! for the last year and a half is YOU, our Estimated Friends! It is your interest and support that helped us achieve the outcomes listed above, and it will continue to do so in the coming year 2013, making us happy to offer something new!


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