Jerūiyq: Journey Beyond the Horizon

Lena Pozdnyakova, Yerbolat Tolepbay, Saken Narynov, Eldar Tagi, Anvar Musrepov, Kamil Mullashev

Jerūiyq is a promised land from Kazakh legend, passed down to the present through generations of oral tradition, serving as a metaphor for searching, exploration, improvement, and invisible knowledge. Ancient tales about the philosopher Asan Kaigy tell of his efforts to lead the nomadic people to lands free from disease and hunger, where time grants eternal life.

The word “kaigy” translates from Kazakh as “sorrow.” Common expressions such as “fall into asan kaigy” use this name as a synonym for sorrow. Sorrow, like a thin veil, hangs over the memory of the many utopias that have failed to be realized in the endless steppe, through traumatic encounters with the dark side of modernity: the tragic famine of the 1930s, craters carved out by nuclear test sites in Semey, the desiccation of the Aral Sea, and other scars on the body of the Kazakh land.

The exhibition is based on a chronology of key artworks of the utopian imagination of Kazakh artists since the 1970s (Above the White Desert—K. Mulashov), through the works of the period of the emergence of contemporary art in Kazakhstan (Baikonur-2 by S. Maslov) to the present day—including works based on artificial intelligence (Presence—The2VVO).

With independence, Kazakh art received a new impetus to reimagine and decolonize the future without deferring to Soviet censorship and the approval of the metropolis. This exhibition presents a collection of works by artists projecting their vision of ideal worlds, where spirits and mystical rituals meet (Alastau—A. Musrepov), where nomadism is transformed into space stations (Mobile Unit—S. Narynov), and visionary monumental painting that reveals portals to look beyond the horizon of events (New Child. Rebirth—Y. Tolepbay). In our time, with its permanent turbulent state, Jerūiyq becomes a guiding star on the path to overcoming the crisis of imagination.