31 Oct - 01 Dec 14
HUSEYN HAGVERDI
THE STONE
Museum of Modern Art
October 31 - December 1, 2014
curator: CHINGIZ
While reflecting life, art is preserved in history, like life is preserved in historical eras. It is a mirror, reflecting both feelings of human beings and different events occurring in their life. Culture preserves and delivers to us works where all the actions mentioned above are reflected; however, it doesn't always display its presence positively. Absence of culture is, at the same time, an indicator and an inseparable part of cultural history, characterizing its level of development at specific stages. In other words, art reflects the actual state; it is an area for the visualization of visible and invisible spiritual experiences, by representatives of various geopolitical spaces. Art is created by people to share their world outlook. It allows humans to express their feelings and thoughts, and it serves as a means for unusual dialogue. Events occurring in modern life can be rather sensual and strong emotionally, in many cases it fills the consciousness of people to such an extent, that at some point the need for works of art ceases. Events fly through our life with extreme speed, leaving fragments of situations not realized until the end. Art is lagging behind to embrace, analyze and respond in due time to occurred events. Thus history serves as an archive, a place for storing the past. It is namely that space, that database, where truth and lie, individuality and of mass character, rationality and ignorance get along together. And though ignorance partly dominates realities of our humdrum life too, nevertheless, culture is not subjected to it...
Thus, what does this concept of modern culture mean? The term "modern" does not make culture exclusive and distinct from the culture of other eras. Modern culture was, is and will be modern at all times; the difference is that priorities of different historical periods are distinguished from each other. Culture is similar to freedom. For its development it is necessary to create the right conditions, and there are no ready recipes for this. Being critical in its essence, modern art is a kind of beacon directed towards that truth; thanks to it society has a chance to notice negative and positive developments in poetic and analytical form.
Criticism is necessary; it is more of a positively adapted, objective and analytical meditation, rather than a subjective and negative surge of emotions.
Art that does not possess any common factor with real, vital processes may not be logically claimed by present time. If this or that work is not connected with actual life, then it can't be alive and it is doomed to oblivion. It is very important to state actual ideas and its application in actual situations within the context of modern life. Each idea embodies in itself various subtleties taken from actual life, and without settling any problem just formulates this or that issue for broad discussion. Thus, some dialogue or, rather, quite another critical look at society, on the level of the same society and individual is created.
As is mentioned above, events occur in reality with such speed that art isn't in time to realize both historical and political formats. And after all, for the transformation of facts and emotions into works of art, time is required. In contemporary art skill gives place to wit, thereby disclosing simultaneously unrestricted and ambiguous possibilities for the realization of various art projects.
Honesty replaces slyness here and purity of idea replaces debauchery, as this occurs in a real life. Sincerity and purity of idea motivate a person to create, leading them to the light. Evidently, they may not reach this light, but the movement towards it; itself is the process of life cognition.
The enlightenment has no limit; the enlightenment process is a meaning of cognition.
The artist is frequently not fair to their own works. They cannot simply create something; instead they expect recognition for their view point or declaration of a represented idea as their own property. When one or another idea to create the next work comes to the artist's mind, then it is at first the execution of an idea that the artist ponders; how to draw it technically, from which material and in which technique to realize it. Thus, a large part of time and energy is spent on embodiment, that is to say, on the idea of presentation. So, the idea becomes secondary in relation to its physical embodiment. By the signing of the work the artist supposes thereby that they put their resolution on their authorship. The “privatized” idea is submitted for consideration by society, where the artist dictates his /her/ view point and, actually, does not leave the spectator any chance to be with him in equal dialogue.
The creator is a human, executing works of art. By creating them, all professionals interpret sound, form, paint and movement accepted from the outside. However, contradictory issues arise here: what is the extent of the creator term in this case? After all a human themself is created, and in such a case, how the creation, that is to say, how may a human consider their activity as a creative activity and themselves as a creator? What is the extent of exclusive copyright for creativity? I presume, to be able to observe with sensible view of life and art, one must take the first step towards freedom from stereotypes into actual life.
The artist is not in a condition to realize the limits of their possibilities and, nevertheless, subconsciously, continues opening new open spaces for the development of consciousness. Separation between consciousness and feelings of the artist are reflected in the work they create. This makes a distance between actual life and the artist. Frequently, it does not allow feeling a life as it is, hence, analyzing it, while reflecting on the process and attempting to summarize an occurring event. Namely, these are attempts of transformation of the most complex processes occurring in life, to a level of culture, called by us contemporary! The progress of society is directly connected with leading conceptual ideas and philosophy directly generated through life. Only ideas filled with life, which are embodied in the works of the artist, whether a painter, a sculptor, a dancer, a poet, a director or any other creative figure, may be actual, calling upon a community for dialogue where an artist brings up their view point for general discussion. In discussions at such level those reference points are created for future directions, both for culture and art in particular. These reference points or priorities set the main direction for development of art and actually put a basis for long-term progress of culture.
It is commonly known, that thanks to modern technologies of any kind, events drastically surpass their understanding. Whatever occurs with original cultures with the background of cataclysms of mass intervention of ubiquitous facelessness is a result of negative and irreversible global processes. De-personalization of entity, of individual cultures of world nations is going painfully, both for each culture taken separately and, as a whole, for world cultural heritage. The assimilation of aboriginal cultures by means of total introduction of invented and extrinsic pseudo-mass culture is violent. Heritage defines national characteristics. Mass culture erases the originality of independent cultures. People support mass culture consciously and subconsciously, and thus, potentially put the basis for the possibility of oblivion of their own originality. As a result of the deleting of originality, emptiness is created, some irreplaceable gap in people's spiritual life - the emptiness, which is surrounded by the cold wall of silence and hopelessness, dividing our world into two opposite halves.
From one side of the wall, the world looks as it does dictated to us by world mass-media, and from the other side it is its reality. The concept of the invisible wall has existed for a long time, and it serves mainly the purpose of isolation from surroundings and being not accepted in the world. Undoubtedly, the wall is an illusion of safety and refuge, but to what extent is this position applicable against the actual force of perfection of nature? Artificially isolating themselves from the environment and creating an illusion of security, humans actually hides from themselves, without solving a problem of a deficiency in dialogue at all, on the contrary, aggravating it. … Indeed, the world is uniform and there are no fences and walls in nature. To be human is to be in incessant dialogue with it, with the aim not to lose communication, and to continue learning from nature in order to live. The most important error of a human is continuous aspiration to be isolated from nature and to be separate from it. But, one must see a difference between isolation and seclusion. It is seclusion in oneself, and not from oneself: because seclusion in oneself is beneficial for the sake of soul, and is directly connected with creative activity. Creativity is an individual process; hence, a creative person is consciously and subconsciously in constant search of seclusion.
Historically, humans used all possible means for self-expression, such as fine arts, music, dance and so on. The most ancient forms of creative activity are connected with ritual ceremonies and sculptures, totems, which exist until today. People used various natural materials, among which a stone occupies a special place, there is even a certain historical period is called after stone. Today, we have the possibility to observe the preserved up until today, structures of all kinds of spiritual and technical purposes, made by humans from stone. From the point of the appearance of a human on the earth, stone has been one of the most ancient minerals, serving humankind in all areas of activity. A stone is a ”bona memoria” of history, where the genetic code of the earth is preserved. People always used stone, creating instruments of labor, erecting temples, shelters, and also objects of worship – totems, to which they brought sacrifices and considered sacred. Humans immortalized various images in stone, including sculptures of animals, occupying a special place in the practical life of people, which were considered sacred at that time.
But since then much has changed and the number of temples is increasing, but belief is decreasing. People began loving less and the absence of love affected their life, where aggression, harm and animal instincts dominate. However, there are still people, who continue loving and generating, creating works, making humankind ponder on many things in life. One such creative person is Huseyn Hagverdi, whose works reveal for spectators multi-faceted world of forms and colors. Having received higher classical art education and with great experience, Huseyn has created numerous works, disclosing for us his rich and multiple-valued private world. Sculpture, graphics and painting are several tools, applied by the artist for an embodiment of multi-faceted ideas. Huseyn Hagverdi is one of the few sculptors who devote most of their creativity to a mysterious material with common stone. Due to the nature of his character and professional obsession with the qualities inherent in stone, the artist may be called «a stone sculptor». As if he stays in an inseparable dialogue with this material, each time revealing for him new secrets. According to Huseyn's words, life is his main source of inspiration. Reflections on life suggest an idea to the artist about its paradoxes. Thus, a series of graphic and sculptural works appear where the artist, joining two different subjects, tries to create a new organism, something of an architectonic one. The humanized architecture or architectonic human images, where a human remains under the pressure of humdrum daily rhythms of a huge metropolis, visually represent the author's deep concern with the problem of human loneliness. As if the artist gets into the subtle feeling of an understanding of human nature, which is alien to the atmosphere of large city.
The process of human separation from nature began many centuries ago. The paradox is that with the development of technologies of any kind, humans gradually began detaching themselves from an environment peculiar to them, and as a result, became hostage to ambitious ideas and continuous pondering on the dilemma of seclusion.
Ignoring daily realities of life, Huseyn prefers the spiritual realism of the internal life of a human being and gets profoundly into the process of the essence of life. He creates different sculptures with sharp outlines and rigid silhouettes, thus visualizing his protest against unacceptable total mass pseudo–culture imposed on humans. This is the rebellious spirit of the artist, one of the distinctive features of his character, which creates the mystery and charisma around his artistic image. By means of created images, the artist transmits to us his state and emotional experiences. They appear in front of us, as if self-portraits of artist's soul. Applying stone features, the artist, tenderly, with easy taps, slightly breaks its integrity, leaving for the audience the possibility to continue his idea mentally. Thus, being in interactive connection with the created object, spectators have the possibility to participate in the secret action of the creator. This is a unique moment, when the mysteries of action unite nature, artist and spectator.
CHINGIZ
project curator