Almagul Menlibayeva, “Wrack and the Maiden,” Duratrans print in lightbox, 2011 (copyright © 2011 Priska Juschka Fine Art)
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
547 West 27th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through May 14, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Catalog Release and Artist Talk: Thursday, March 31, free, 6:30
212-244-4320
www.priskajuschkafineart.com
In Kazakh artist Almagul Menlibayeva’s latest video, “Transoxiana Dreams,” on view through May 14 at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art in Chelsea, a young child dreams of her father driving through the Aralkum, searching for the sea. The vast wasteland was created by controversial Soviet irrigation policies, creating a desert where the Oxus River once fed into the Aral Sea. Menlibayeva captures the indigenous people living in the arid area, including naked women who pose with the bodies of foxes by rusting fishing vessels, wearing Soviet military hats and covering their private parts with fried eggs and big black circles, as if censored by a nonexistent government. She compares the dilapidated metal structures to camels (the ships of the desert), left to rot throughout a region that once thrived along the Silk Road. She also adds a pair of realistic fake legs to a woman, turning her into a centaurlike creature, evoking the ancient Greeks’ confusion of finding nomads on horseback and thinking they were a single entity. The exhibition features eighteen prints in addition to the compelling, surreal film. As part of the Dialogues in Asian Contemporary Art programming for Asian Contemporary Art Week, Menlibayeva will be at the gallery tonight for the release of the exhibition catalog and to give an artist talk on the fascinating project.