Event overview
Department of Art Public Talks Programme Spring 2016 welcomes alumni Taus Makhacheva to speak on her practice.
Contemporary Art Talks: TAUS MAKHACHEVA
Taus Makhacheva grew up in Moscow, while her background is in Dagestan, in the Caucasian part of Russia, it is this personal connection that is often the starting point for her work, exploring a complex relationship between history, politics of memory and contemporary life. Working primarily with video as well as installation, photography and objects, Makhacheva often turns her attention to the traditions of her multi-ethnic origin before Sovietisation. The question she asks is what actually remains from that past: how and in what forms has it been re-introduced into everyday life by her contemporaries in their struggle to find the country’s new identity. The artist’s position isn’t nostalgic but rather captures the processes of mixing, borrowing and assimilation, of interaction between the familiar and the alien. In this sense, Makhacheva’s works opposes the official ideological claim for cultural authenticity and instead investigates re-invented traditions and newly created rituals conditioned by the commercialisation of the culture that is supposed to help consolidate post-soviet Dagestan society. [text: Ilina Koralova]
Taus Makhacheva graduated with a BA Fine Art from Goldsmiths in 2007 and a MFA from the Royal College of Art in 2013. Her work was included in the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in both 2011 and 2015; Liverpool Biennial in 2012; Sharjah Biennial; 55th Venice Biennial, Collateral Exhibition; Republic of Dagestan Union of Artists Exhibition Hall, Makhachkala; Raf Projects, Tehran, all 2013; Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, both 2014; Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Bologna; Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala; Kyiv Biennial, all 2015. Makhacheva won the “Future of Europe” Prize, Museum of Contemporary art, Leipzig, 2014 and the “New Generation – Innovation” State Prize in Contemporary Art in 2012. Taus Makhacheva was born in Moscow in 1983, she lives and works in Makhachkala, Russia.
Image: Taus Makhacheva, ‘Tightrope’, video still. 4K Video, 73min, colour, sound, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
This event is free. No booking is required. All Welcome.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Jan 2016 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
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