SAG 2016 | artbatkz

THE SCHOOL OF ARTISTIC GESTURE-2016

Curator: Yuliya Sorokina

Educational period: June-August

The educational project for young artists “The School of Artistic Gesture” was functioning during the summer of 2016 within the scope of the Festival of Contemporary Art ARTBAT FEST 7. This program had been designed for young people aged 18-35 who have little experience in art, and, perhaps, are not yet formed as independent artists. The summer program, consisting of a series of lectures by leading contemporary artists, and workshops on the implementation of the students’ projects, was completed with the Exhibition of Young Artists as part of the ARTBAT FEST 7 Festival.

«The strategy of an artistic gesture has currently moved to the forefront of art. This allows artists to respond to the challenges of the times without investing much in materials, which were usually required for creating marketable objects for the art world, the so-called «masterpieces.» Young generation of artists, as a rule, adequately perceive this strategy, which allows them to make their statements in the context of their environment and society. But most importantly, this strategy allows lets artists be involved in the current paradigm of contemporary art, most accurately expressed by the outstanding theorist Boris Groys in the article «The Pussy Riot Act as a Social Sculpture»: «All art of the 20th century and of our time, if it really belongs to its time, was and is dealing with only one thing – transfering of the viewer’s attention from the text to the context, from the object to the social space in which it exists.»

However, young artists need assistance in getting the basic knowledge and skills to fulfil their ideas. This assistance can be in the form of the School of artistic gesture, where experienced artists can act as trainers. Young authors can make statements that completely refute the experience of previous generations, but in order to do so they need to know what was done before them.»

Yuliya Sorokina, curator

Yuliya Sorokina is an independent curator, art critic, lecturer, teacher, author in regional and international publications, curator of the Central Asian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. She started the foundation «Asia Art +». As an invited curator, she has been working with the British Council, the Goethe-Institute and the German Technical Service Association (GTZ). She has work experience in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Syria, USA, Turkey, France, South Korea. Collaborates as an art critic with various publications and blogs reviewing exhibitions, writes articles for catalogues.

More than 60 students from Almaty, Astana, Bishkek and Moscow took part in the educational program.

Lecturers and tutors of the School of Artistic Gesture-2016:

Vato Tsereteli (Georgia) - artist, photographer, curator and art-manager, founder of the first Georgian center of contemporary art

Sabina Shikhlinskaya (Azerbaijan) - artist, independent curator, pioneer of conceptual art of Azerbaijan

Mikhail Gulin (Belarus) - artist, curator of exhibition projects

Payam Sharifi (Germany) - writer, artist, lecturer, founder of the Slaves and Tatars project

Askhat Akhmedyarov (Kazakhstan) - artist

Alexander Ugay (Kazakhstan) - artist, teacher

Elena Vorobyeva and Victor Vorobyev (Kazakhstan) - artists

Olya Kroytor (Russia) - artist, performer

Valery Chtak (Russia) - graffiti artist

Ulan Dzhaparov (Kyrgyzstan) - artist, curator, architect, critic