A DIALOGUE OF CULTURES

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" is the title of an exhibition at the YARAT modern arts centre, which is on until January next year. The title of the exhibition was borrowed from the American writer Carson McCullers, who wrote a novel with this name in 1940. However, she, too, borrowed it from the Scottish poet, William Sharp, who lived and worked at the end of the 19th century. However, the thematic scope of the work by the writer and poet could be defined by his poetical quote "My heart is a lonely hunter".

Each of the artists taking part in the exhibition could say the same about themselves. They represent two such different and yet such similar worlds of East and West: two worlds - two ways of life. But each has the same commitment - a search for the humanistic in humanity, a search for "oneself" in a world of violence and cruelty and an attempt to reconsider time over centuries of traditions, ever changing under the onrush of the encroaching world of today and its new technological ideals. These artists are Neil Beloufa, Hannah Black, Camille Henrot, Parker Ito, Bunny Rogers, Jasper Spicero, Lu Yang. Aida Mahmudova, Nibar Gurash, Erbossyn Meldibekov, Niyaz Nacafov, Ramal Kazimov, and others.

Going back to the title of the exhibition, it could be regarded as individual subjects and the ideas behind each of the artists' work, but also as a kind of fan-art, dedicated to the work of Carson McCullers, the American writer and her dramatic destiny. It is the work of lovers of popular literature and the cinema. What is distinctive about the concept of the sponsors of the exhibition is that an exposition of such varied works has given professional artists an opportunity to act as fan-arts of various heroes and works which, in turn, provide the same opportunity for us, the public.

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Central to the exhibition are works by Pierre Huyghe and Phillipe Parreno.  This is an artistic reappraisal of the impact of art on human life. The central point of their study is an avatar. It is a girl but her eyes are closed. Not because she is asleep but because she has no soul. She is just a shell, a lie which has a rather attractive appearance. But substituting a lie for the truth is always destructive.  It impacts on the real world, encroaches upon it, bringing with it moral loss and disillusion. Fictional characters affect the world of people and they can be dangerous.

Ramal Kazimov (Baku). The arrangement of the artist's numerous works has been carried out in three colours, and each of them is the result of the author's internal spiritual resistance to the real world, which aggressively invades each of us from our television screens, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. How can we counter this? Or perhaps we shouldn't? But can there be a dividing line between one's own spirit and the encroaching world? No. And how we accept this world is a choice we all face…

Neil Beloufa. "Data for Desire". Television is increasingly encroaching upon our lives, sometimes obtrusively and cynically. Numerous reality shows, observing life on-line, long-term projects, cynically aimed at our most intimate things - all this is a desire to cheapen everything that for centuries has been developed by mankind morally and spiritually. But all these programmes are just a flash in the pan.  They'll disappear and nothing will be left of them. But there are stable, lasting values in the world and they will endure for much longer, sometimes for centuries. Unfortunately, they are linked only with the material world of values, and are therefore more stable, lasting and impregnable in time. They are not bothered at being the target of obtrusive curiosity by the media and interested parties! Their spirit, thoughts and ideas are ethereal, and therefore vulnerable and subject to change in time. People's lives today are a target of permanent monitoring, observation and study. The social media are forming new fears among the people of the 21st century, whose lives have become a subject of targeted marketing.

Parker Ito. "Razzleedazzele-frontsm". The work of this American artist is full of metaphorical meaning. Democracy, which people talk and write about and popularize so much all over the world is really nothing more than beautiful words, behind which actually lie bans, lawlessness and insecurity. American-style democracy means numerous chains of conventionalities. Sometimes they are clear, beautifully presented chains. But still they are chains: binding, restraining, forbidding.

His next work is an installation, created specially for this exhibition and dedicated to one and the same theme - stages of freedom independent of man in the modern world, dependent on new myths and mundane, media, technological structures, developed by man in the 21st century. Freedom and dependence on them are very specific concepts!

A dialogue

Bunny Rogers is a poet and an artist and she has a wide variety of her works on show at the exhibition. But, arguably the most emotional of them is a work dedicated to the tragic events that took place in the library and cafeteria at Columbine High School in the US in 1999. Dozens of children were killed by one of their peers. And all that was left were rucksacks lying neatly on the desks. This was a case of bloody violence which the psychologists and sociologists said was the result of the influence of video games on children who had ceased to differentiate between the world of virtual games and the real world of real people. It was a case which marked the beginning for subsequent similar tragedies but which did not force people to review the role of the encroachment of the Internet into people's lives, conscience and psyche. 

Nibar Gurash. The "Standing Camila". A girl, standing at the top of a hill, is trying to get a signal so she can use her mobile. She is dressed in traditional national dress, and were it not for the phone in her hand we could take her for a girl living at the beginning of the 20th century. The same idea is in her work "Portrait behind the scenes". Women in national dress are engaged in traditional domestic occupations, but the details of contemporary clothes make them out to be ladies of today. Time invades people's lives even in the most remote geographical places. It is a natural process which cannot be prevented.

Rasad Alakbarov.  "Sabaka". These are ornaments of geometrical form preserved in Azerbaijan as a type of ancient creative work. Ancient sabaka are works by craftsmen in stone, and later in wood and metal. They are often compared with European glass paintings, possibly because all the windows and doors in the Palace of the Saki Khan were made in this way.  Samsi, gulu, bandi-rumi, gullabi, cafari, and so on are regarded as traditional compositions in this technique. Our artist has his own approach and his own vision. The unusually joined sections of metal rods, impaled with a stream of light, form a uniquely beautiful ornament on the wall - a modern version of ancient art!

Two worlds - two ways of life, but with the same ideas, feelings and concept of problems. The artists are messengers of peace, proclaiming the truth, presumptuously making statements calling for a dialogue - intellectual, emotional and concomitant. And it is good that there is a place where we can find this form that allows so many people to also become participants in a dialogue of cultures, mindsets and attitudes.