PUPPETS COME TO LIFE AT NIGHT

The Baku "Kukla" ["Puppet"] art gallery is the first and only one in the Southern Caucasus set up by two Baku women, the art expert Lala Kyazimova and the director of the Museum Centre and Art Gallery, Liana Vazirova. The art gallery is marking its own birthday with a personal exhibition by the St. Petersburg artist Lada Repina. The results of the last year are sufficiently impressive.

A year of active creative work has been crowned by completely worthy results," says Liana Vazirova. "We have had several exhibitions here -"The Sultan's Favourite" (a personal exhibition of works by Elmira Abbasli), "Martian-type expresso" (Parviz Huseynov, Irina Gundorina); the Museum centre held the second international puppet biennale Fusion Dolls with the active participation of the art gallery, organised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and we took part in the IVth Moscow International "Puppet Art" exhibition at the Manezh [exhibition hall in Moscow]

Our plans for the very near future are to take part in the international puppet exhibition in Tallinn [Estonia]. The biennale was extremely well organised. Lala Kazimova has taken upon herself the enormous responsibility for setting up the "Kukla" art gallery. We have a remarkable collective of staff and I hope that, working together, we shall implement all our plans, not only to develop this direction, but we shall successfully integrate into the culture of other countries. Azerbaijan does have things to share with the world which might surprise it!"

- But why puppets? Is it simply a fashion?

- It is more likely that it was planned higher up, because within the framework of those exhibitions that we have  had at the Museum Centre, puppets have increasingly been on display among the art works. Puppets are an objet d'art. And it is a very attractive art form too.

- People talk about the wax figures at Madame Tussauds with some kind of mystical enthusiasm! They say that the figures behave in a strange way, especially at night. What do you think? Is this just a "scary" story or just some kind of PR gimmick?

- I did not think that we would talk about that. I don't know whether that is a gimmick or not, but mystical moments do occur quite often in places where the puppets are kept.

So what happens? Do the puppets change places?

-No, but you do get the feeling that they are getting up to something. Quite a few times the alarm has gone off at night, sometimes even 50 times in one night.

Do you "suspect" that your puppets are involved in such "sabotage"?

It's not that I have "suspected" it, but I wouldn't put it past them being capable of it. It is very interesting working with puppets, but it's not easy. You have to make contact with each of them. If there is no contact, you can expect anything you like to happen!

- But what happens in your case?

I have a remarkable relationship with my puppets, They love me, and I love them too. I feel quite comfortable when I'm in the same place with them, Puppets made by our Baku artists Parviz Huseynov and Irina Gundorina are kept in my office permanently.This set of puppets must not be split up. The puppets are almost like relatives to each other. They have brought to me a completely different feeling of time and place. But it is impossible to explain that. You can only experience it, together with them, of course…

- Why is a personal exhibition of works by an artist from the St. Petersburg school like Lada Repina, being on the anniversary of the gallery's opening?

- Because we want to make a present to the visitors to the gallery by displaying works by a young and very interesting artist like Lada Repina. Her work is not simply professionally made puppets. They represent a conceptual view of the world of art, the theatre and life in general.

At this moment it seemed as if Liana Vazirova herself was not a completely real person, but someone out of a fairy-tale. The queen of the puppets, for example. So what? Always comme il faut. Always on a theoretical quest. Always fully armed, in a female and professional and an administrative manner. This is what the proprietor of the art gallery should be like! And as if she had just read a thought which had slipped away, she added:

- Lada has very theatrical puppets. They fit into our space well. This is why it was very important for me to create the right entourage for them as a kind of decoration.

And the twelve personages from Lada Repina's collection of works reacted very decorously to the first visitors. At a certain moment, it seemed as if we had interrupted their ceremonial interaction! "The heir" threw out his hand in a gesture of greeting with a little rose on a long stem clutched in it; the "blue dragonfly-catcher" took his eyes off the dragon-fly sitting on the handle of his net for a second, almost noticeably smiling. The "court singer" shrugged her shoulders in a grandiose manner and smiled.

The works are so precisely dotted around the room, that, when going from one puppet to another, it really does seem as if you are strolling through a kingdom where there is an emperor, a queen, an heir and their subjects: the explorers, the defenders. Each of the puppet characters has its own dramatic story to tell within this kingdom. Here is the "Labyrinth", above which there is a female figure who is fancifully formed in the secret and open stair-like spans and suspended bridges, the interweaving of semi-arches and the lace-like surfaces. A woman is something mysterious! A woman is intriguing. She is unpredictable, multi-faceted. But there is some kind of reliable well-founded basis in that unpredictability. This is why you want to spend time looking at her  to figure out all the possible variants of reality. Just as you do with the "Queen". The entire kingdom, all her power and her calm confidence are  on the flounces of her skirt. Or the court singer, who in some sense a combination of the author's ideas of the East, steeped in Arabian fairy-tales. With a sensation of spicy aromas, the glitter of gold, the singing of the birds of paradise, the luxuriousness of the wealthy palaces and the intriguing romanticism of what has not been said.

The east, says Lada Repina, is always like magic, a fairy-tale, something you have to guess  at. It is always like a secret that you want to uncover.

-What did you think life would be like in Baku?

- Completely different from what I have seen. Many artists had told me that Baku was like a fairy-tale city. They told me how beautiful and unusual it was and how lucky I was to be going to Baku. I formed a picture in my imagination, steeped in what I had read at one time about the East. But what I witnessed was nothing like what I imagined. The city is beautiful and surprising in its combination of east and European motifs. The city is very modern. People are very open and kind. They are very hospitable. The residents of St. Petersburg are much more withdrawn and reluctant to make contact.

When you cast a glance at the court singer, it seems as if she is listening to you. And in general all those puppet characters don't appear to be what they actually are. You see, the artists are good provocateurs, and know how to conceal something within the puppet, something that no-one suspects. And it is precisely this "something" that becomes the reason why each of the puppets is eye-catching. You can't get away from these puppet characters. You want to go on looking at them. Sometimes you stare right into their eyes in the hope of espying that secret that the artist has hidden. But no-one can explain what is behind this phenomenon, no-one can explain whether it is the peculiarities of the artist's own energy vibrations, or it is a trace of the changing emotional backgrounds and moods. But there is a version which says that puppets cam be a destructive force as well.

- When you make puppets, you start with the face, says. When you have only just started to work in that genre (the grey del arte puppet,  then they all have their eyes closed. I was simply afraid to have them looking at me. This fear went with time. But there is something mystical about that process.

- Have you ever felt the antagonism between you and your work?

- Yes, it has happened. But this is when something comes out of me and transfers into the puppet, passing on to it far from good qualities. I destroy them then. A puppet should have positive vibes and a good mood. It should be better than I am myself. For this reason, the artist working in this genre has to be better than he really is. That's probably how it should be..

I did not want to part from such a charming and talented artist. I did not want to say goodbye to Parviz Huseynov and Irina Gundorina. People who are so in love with the art of making puppets, with such happy and talented people. I didn't want to say goodbye to Liana Vazirova. It seemed as if she could still tell us a lot about the life of the puppet characters, that secret, mystical, unusual life. When I cast a last glance at the catcher of blue dragon-flies, to be honest it seemed as if he smiled and winked at me. You need to come here with your friends. You need to come here again.