The Relevance of Metaphysics in Contemporary Art: a Central Asian Perspective
Saodat Ismailova. Zukhra, 2013, Courtesy of the artist ©
The traditional notions of art as ‘the use of skill or imagination to create aesthetic objects, settings or actions that can be shared with others’ associated with metaphysical concepts of beauty and perfection, and then with the ways of reflecting the external world or romantic self-expression have been subjected to criticism since the end of the 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, the ‘relevance’ and ‘topicality’ of art, its ‘contemporaneity’ have become the doxa in the global artworld. ‘Topicality’ was correlative to the extent of art’s dedication to today’s problems, mainly of a social nature, experienced by one or another part of mankind. In Central Asia, this kind of critical vision was most overtly espoused by the now-defunct School of Theory and Activism Bishkek (STAB) which produced a series of ground-breaking publications and videos and organised residencies for young artists attracted by ‘revolutionary’ left-wing rhetoric.
While the key posits of the critical theory and culture studies are often taken as axiomatic in the international art world, in Central Asia they are still regarded as marginal, belonging to the small elitist club of contemporary artists and writers exemplified by the STAB. Most art produced across the region involves realistic or modernist varieties on the ‘national identity’, represented in series of ‘typical images’ of mountains, architectural monuments, imaginary heroes of the past, horses, wise old men in traditional costumes, vast steppes, traditional rituals and so on. Two broad narratives seem to personify these artistic reflections: to the north of the Syr Darya river (in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) the archetypal human being is the Nomad; to the south, in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan it is the Sufi. Paradoxically, these ‘typical representations’ of national identity, derived from the theories and practices of Socialist Realism, are now seen as patriarchal and essentialist by the left-wing critics. Another paradox is a parallel coexistence of two art worlds: a small bubble of contemporary art recognised by the ‘global West’ and a vast terrain of traditional or modernist ‘national’ art, which however has only a local significance. In the early 2010s, the situation in the region gradually began to change, reflecting global tendencies. As financial and institutional opportunities to support the development of contemporary art became increasingly more limited, many from the left became disillusioned with art and moved into politics, while the right embraced epistemological relativity and began to create multiple worlds of ‘alternative facts.’ By the end of the decade characterised by growing fragmentation, various compromises with government-backed programmes, media and businesses, a new lingering for metaphysics emerged in the context of commercialisation of the ‘topical’ and institutionalisation of social protest in Central Asia as well as elsewhere. Before we look further into the regionally specific characteristics of this complex development let me first set a wider, global perspective on the issue and then look at the way Central Asia fits this complex intellectual environment. The global rise of metamodernism ‘attempting to attain some sort of transcendent position’ is a context in which a ‘metaphysical turn’ is taking place. Why is metaphysics becoming important again? Adrian Moore defines it as ‘the most general attempt to understand the world' and after a long period dominated by anti-essentialism and social deconstruction in culture, philosophy and art, now happily embraced by populist politicians, the need for this understanding is becoming more and more urgent. Generally speaking, I can see at least four prerequisites or sources of the metaphysical turn. The first is the long-lasting conceptual crisis of postmodernism which is happening at the time of deep postmodernity characterised by fragmentation, groundlessness, subjectivity, all types of relativism, ‘alternative facts’ and post-truth. The second, related to the first, is a philosophical campaign against correlationism. Defined by Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism, and then taken on to a new level by Graham Harman and Timothy Morton, the primary emphasis of the ‘new metaphysics’ shifted from the physicality of objects and the refusal to discuss the issues of consciousness outside humans (Bruno Latour) towards immaterialism and the expansion of categories of objectivity. The third force driving the metaphysical turn is ecological criticism which has gained new traction in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemics gave the concept of anthropocene, a period of irreversible environmental changes caused by humans, a new dimension. Ecological criticism of postmodernist thinking can be summarised in one sentence: ‘it isn’t language which has a hole in its ozone layer’ written by Kate Soper in her fundamental work back in 1995.
An opposite metaphysical position is taken by multiple deniers of anthropogenic drivers of the global climate change. The fourth factor is a resurge of public interest in different forms of esotericism, often rather profane. These can be very broadly categorised as ‘developmental’, including yoga, veganism, different New Age movements and life coaching schools and ‘obscurantist’, involving various conspiracy theories about the flat Earth governed by reptiloids, Freemasons or the Illuminati.
An important outcome of this has been the fragmentation of the traditional dichotomy of political left and right in relation to the philosophical binary opposition of materialism and idealism once considered axiomatic by the Marxists who have been concerned about ‘idealistic distortions’ in recent decades.
In Central Asian culture, this universal mismatch has been exacerbated by the simultaneous existence of three different kinds of metaphysics. The first is firmly rooted in the scientific and positivist metaphysics of the 1960s-1970s, linked in the USSR to the space exploration, the debates between the ‘physicists’ and the ‘lyricists’ and various offshoots of the Russian formalism. Among the best reflections of this kind of metaphysics in art are two beautiful and atmospheric paintings by Kamil Mullashev from Kazakhstan: one featuring a cosmonaut who has just landed in the steppe with a giant parachute unfurling behind him (Youth, 1978) and the other depicting huge spherical oil tanks in the desert with a small figure of a camel rider on the foreground (
Over White Desert, 1978). Juxtaposition of the spiral shape of the galaxy and a tiny snail (Dialogue in Space, 1975) and a wooden plough (Dialogue with Time, 1978) reflect philosophical interpretations of hermeneutic relations between objects in the paintings of the Samarkand artist Grigory Ulko.
Obviously, this kind of modernist metaphysics is no longer seriously pursued by many artists apart from the Kazakh architect and mathematician Saken Narynov who has developed a pristine artistic style of translating complex mathematical formulas into impressive 3D objects.
One soul’s six lives. Saken Narynov, 1998 Courtesy of the artist ©
However, it serves as an important reference point for those contemporary artists who work with the Soviet aesthetics and memories like Alexander Ugay or technologies, like Anvar Musrepov (both from Almaty). The second type of metaphysical art, already mentioned above, is derived from the essentialist understanding of such concepts as ‘national’, ‘ethnic’, ‘identity’ and so on. I have written about it elsewhere and the art historian Boris Chukhovich (born in Tashkent but now living in Montreal) has profoundly analysed the subject.
Examples of such art are too numerous to mention. It seeks to celebrate imaginary identities construed through a range of metonymically organised visual stereotypes borrowed from traditional folk art. What I would like to emphasise here is that such self-exotisation is by no means confined to the mainstream world of commercial or state-sponsored fine art. The Kazakh sociologist Diana Kudaibergenova holds that ‘the Central Asian contemporary art scene is defined by the constant search for one’s true identity and the truth about one’s past, culture, and future’.
This is a teleological statement of a purely metaphysical objective which implies that one and the only ‘true identity’ (of course, ethnic) can be filtered through layers of false ones and reliably attained. Some contemporary artists seem to use a range of contemporary tools like postmodernist irony (Kuanysh Bazargaliev, Almaty and Almagul Menlibaeva, Berlin / Almaty), contemporary artistic research (Saodat Ismoilova, Paris / Tashkent) or modernist art forms (Normurod Negmatov, Samarkand and Sardor Erkinov, Tashkent) to pursue what may be interpreted as an essentialist or Orientalist agenda or its criticism at the same time. The third component of the metaphysical development in Central Asian art partly overlaps with other two but with its roots in philosophy rather than ethnography, it addresses the four sources of the global metaphysical turn outlined above much more directly. The artist and architect Meder Akhmetov from Bishkek has developed an interest in object-oriented ontology and created a series of works focusing on the abstract materiality and shape of art objects.
Muhammad Fozili, an artist from Tashkent, is inspired by the structures and symbols of the medieval Islamic architecture as well as by recent scientific discoveries in his elaborate cosmogony.
Finally, I would like to mention my own research of Russian esoteric art in Central Asia focusing on an area emerging as the result of an overlapping of three vast fields, namely: esoteric, artistic and Central Asian. This research culminated in a large exhibition ‘We Treasure Our Lucid Dreams.’ The Other East and Esoteric Knowledge in Russian Art 1905–1969 at the museum of contemporary art GARAGE (Moscow, 2020).
"We Treasure Our Lucid Dreams." The Other East and Esoteric Knowledge in Russian Art 1905–1969, installation view, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2020 Photo: Alexey Narodizkiy © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Apart from my personal interest in esotericism, the decision to focus on this area was prompted by the following considerations. All the social, political, economic and other issues that contemporary art deals with are referenced to a certain metaphysical position, even if it is not explicitly articulated. Contemporary art theories, political ideologies and practices are based on some underlying assumptions about the way the universe is organised.
It is of secondary importance whether these assumptions are labelled as materialistic, inspired by vitalism, realist, spiritual of nihilist. What is crucial is that they are there and they determine how these theories, ideologies and practices appear and function. It is becoming more and more obvious that the current situation in the world urgently requires a new level of understanding of global and causal connections, and that necessitates going beyond the conceptual limitations of the current casual thinking. The sooner we realise that such issues as the existence of time and space, the possibility of attainable truth, anthropocentricity, possible definitions and meaning of life, the nature of consciousness and other metaphysical topics are not just dreamy abstractions distracting us from ‘the revolutionary struggle’ (usually for material resources) but contemporary, topical and relevant issues that absolutely need to be in the focus of our attention at this very moment, the better.
Author: Alexey Ulko
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