M HKA Ensembles

Photography, 7 x (40 x 60) cm.

Collection: Şağylys collection, developed by Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture and M HKA (Inv. no. 0733).

Referring to personal and collective memory, Akhmedyarov’s work often incorporates aspects of traditional culture including shamanic rituals, for instance, the ritual of purification by fire. Appealing to the dialectic between destruction and creation intrinsic to fire symbolism, Autumn Purge represents the urge for revival. Conceived in the moment of personal and artistic crisis, it depicts the artist alone in the steppe, surrounded by nothing but a bed and a painting on an easel. The latter features a straight red line on a blank canvas, vaguely reminiscent of Suprematist aesthetics. Firstly adding a bright green colour to the canvas, as if giving a green light to the next step, he then sets it on fire. Originally trained as a painter with a strong focus on the avant-garde of the 20th century, Akhmedyarov burns a painting as an act of liberation from the burden of the past. The action can also be considered as Akhmedyarov’s response to the now- traditional modernistic debate regarding the artistic primacy of form over colour and vice versa.