The Art of Satiety

An unusual project combining gastronomic pleasures and contemporary art was presented to the visitors of the abr restaurants in Almaty.

"The Art of Satisfaction" was an exhibition of contemporary art, which featured exhibitions by the artist Sergey Kalmykov and works by young Kazakhstani artists and designers such as Aruzhan Zhumabek, Asel Nusipkozhanova and Suinbike.

The main idea of the project was to create a dialogue between society and art in the usual places for the urban dweller: "Public places become like a theatrical stage, where not only the events of urban life are presented, but also its artifacts.

Urban culture nowadays is closely linked to its gastronomic component, and eating has become an indispensable daily ritual for each of us. The culture of food is built in such a way that it becomes important to us not only what we eat, but also in which place.

The particular atmosphere of restaurants shapes our quality of consumption. In this project we took a broader look at the feeling of satiety, which is formed not only from the satisfaction of vital needs.

We gave visitors to the project the opportunity to enjoy food filled with meanings, ideas and symbols. The selected artworks reveal the concept and enhance the atmosphere of each restaurant. They force you to treat the ritual of satiation not only from the point of view of the material component, but also satisfy the need of your "delicate body", - Olga Veselova, art-curator of the project

Sergey Kalmykov

Kazakh artist, illustrator, decorator, writer. He was born in Samarkand and studied in Moscow and St. Petersburg. During his career, Kalmykov developed an original style of painting, sometimes referred to as "fantasy expressionism". Little known and unrecognized during his lifetime and virtually abandoned by everyone at the end of it, Kalmykov is now considered one of the most important representatives of Russian avant-garde art, the author of over 1,500 paintings, drawings, illustrations, theatrical scenery and literary texts. In 1935, Sergey Kalmykov moved to Alma-Ata, then the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, at the invitation of the newly opened Musical Theater of Alma-Ata, which later became the Kazakh Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet named after Abay. He worked in this theater until his retirement in 1962, and created a great number of theatrical sceneries and illustrations for the productions during that time.

Aruzhan Zhumabek

The young Kazakh artist was born in 1997 in Taraz city. From 2004 to 2020 lived in Nur-Sultan city, nowadays she lives in Almaty. She works in graphics using such techniques as pen on paper, acrylic on fabric. She is engaged in clothes customizing and acts as a poster designer in the "Bult" team. Especially for her artwork Aruzhan creates pigment according to the artist's author's recipe. Through human anatomy she dissects human feelings and emotions. The artist explores the theme of corporeality, tactile memory, childhood psychological traumas. Aruzhan was a participant of the School of Art Gesture in 2018 and also participated in group exhibitions such as Bad jokes (Nur-Sultan, 2019) Astana Art Show (Nur-Sultan, 2019) 1st Feminnale of Contemporary art (Bishkek, 2019), ALA Art Residency: vol.1 (Almaty, 2021) ILGERI ART RESIDENCE (Issyk-Kul, 2021) and others.

Asel Nusipkozhanova

Asel Nusipkozhanova was born in 1991 in Taldykorgan. Since childhood took a great interest in painting and drawing. After nine classes she entered the art college of Almaty. In 2011 she received the diploma of "Fashion Designer" and entered Marangoni School in Milan in the department of "Clothing Design". In 2015, after graduation, she had her debut show of the ASSEL collection at DUNIE. In her work, Asel turns to the traditional art of the Oriental peoples, exploring and using Kazakh costume, reinterpreting and modernizing it. In 2014, Asel was included in the list of 200 young designers of Vogue Talents. In 2016, she won the ELLE Kazakhstan Style Awards in the "New Name in Fashion" category. In 2021 the first personal exhibition of paintings and graphics by Asel entitled "Gazhap Dunie" was held in Almaty.

Suinbike

Suinbike was born in 1992 in Almaty to an artist's family. As Suinbike herself notes, her career as an artist began with children's competitions until her first exhibition in 2011, where she demonstrated her passion for video and experimentation. Suinbike graduated from the Kazakh National University of Arts in Nur-Sultan with a degree in cinematography. All these years the artist actively participates in contemporary art festivals both in Almaty and in Nur-Sultan. She has shown her films in Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, China and the USA. In 2016 Suinbike founded a pro-feminist art group aimed at creating and disseminating educational media for women in Central Asia.