Kazakh Photography
The history of photography in Kazakhstan begins with a specific date – 1854 – and a specific image – a double portrait of Fiodor Dostoyevsky and the Kazakh ethnographer Chokan Valikanov that was taken by an unknown pioneer during the writer’s period in exile at Semipalatinsk.
The next important date is 1874, which saw the publication of the album Views and Types of Western Siberia, the creation of Lidia Poltoratskaya, the wife of the governor of the region, which marked the start of ethnographic interest in the remote Asiatic periphery of the Russian Empire.
A major contribution to the study of the region was made by the photographers who accompanied exploratory expeditions connected with the “Great Game” – the struggle between Russia and the British Empire for influence in Central Asia. A collection of ethnographic photographs was also put together by the exiled Pole Konstantin de Lazeri – in 2000 they were displayed by his heirs at an exhibition in Lodz.
Everyday photography also appeared. In 1873 Solomon Leibin opened a studio in the city of Verny (now Almaty) and in 1903 Dmitry Bagayev set up one in Pavlodar.
This brief list does not include the creators of picture postcards and family portraits that are kept in the archives of Kazakhstan’s museums and in private collections, because only a few people are really engaged in researching the history of photography in Kazakhstan.
Still, in comparison with the following period, right up to the 1960s, even that sparse information is a relative abundance, because in Soviet times Kazakhstan became one of the most secret areas of the USSR. The prisoners of the Karlag (Karaganda Corrective Labour Camp) included some outstanding artists – Lev Kropivnitsky, Yulo Sooster, Abram Cherkassky, Vladimir Sterligov, Artur Fonvizin, Heinrich Vogeler. This was the first part of a major artistic project on the part of the Soviet rulers that began a long chain of paradoxes – during the years of repression, more specifically in 1936, the first picture gallery was created in the republic’s capital, followed in 1937 by the College of Theatre and Art, while in 1940 the Artists’ Union of Kazakhstan held its first congress.
The enthusiasm of the participants in the process was so great that exhibitions were transported on camels, while sheepfolds and yurts were turned into exhibition spaces. Nonetheless, by the early 1950s a system of elite creative unions had been formed – composers, writers and cinematographers.
Khrushchev’s thaw led not only to the next paradox – the disbandment of the concentration camps and the construction of the Berlin Wall – but also to the less paradoxical idea of mass creativity. In 1963 fifteen photo-clubs were set up in Kazakhstan: photography was classed as the most “understandable” art form. This gave rise to a situation where the “higher” arts played the role of teacher (not badly paid, incidentally), and the “lower” ones that of pupil, expected to repeat the lessons using more readily available means and materials – unpaid and outside of working hours.
In 1987 the Artists’ Union of Kazakhstan numbered 300 members, and there were 187 photo-circles at schools, colleges and workplaces. Meanwhile the most “professional’ photographers – most of them self-taught or graduates of journalism faculties – were united by 27 photo-clubs.
Nevertheless, they were the ones that broke through the isolation. The magazine Sovetskoye foto published announcements of international competitions and in 1965 V. Belkov, a member of the Alma-Ata club Medeo, sent his works to Czechoslovakia, where they won him a diploma; then in 1969 he was awarded a silver medal in Italy.
His followers – Seidalin, Korenchuk and Suslin – continued the breakout into the wider world and today the Medeo photo-club can boast of having participated in 1,435 international exhibitions and 200 awards. But in the last decade, by the members’ own admittance, they have failed to keep up the pace, something they blame mainly on new technologies. Still the photo-clubs of the 1960s can and should be regarded as tender shoots of democracy, playing their small part in the development of society.
Since the Soviet authorities could not permit uncontrolled activities, the tried and tested mechanism of adaptation, blocking and censorship soon came into operation: in 1980 the state publishing house Oner was created and began putting out magnificent presentation albums of photographs, propaganda posters and postcards, while in 1989 the first congress of the Union of Photographic Artists of Kazakhstan took place. For all that, in the enduring hierarchy photography is still viewed as ancillary material, while the unions of art professionals continue to live a parallel, separate existence.
Nevertheless there is something that unites all the creative clans – a rejection of contemporary art that has, as they see it, intruded very effectively into their spheres of influence. A new type of artistic activity emerged in the early 1990s – together with independence and the declared course towards democratization of the country – changing the techniques, content and philosophy of art, mixing ideas, technologies and aesthetics. Overcoming geographical, historical and informational isolation, the new art manifested itself in a literally physical manner – performances were exceptionally popular in the mid-1990s. But in the new millennium the lead positions were taken by video and photography: the opening in Kazakhstan of offices of the British Council, Goethe-Institut, Soros Foundation and the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Almaty made it possible to study the history of art in the twentieth century, as did seminars and training courses given by invited specialists from Europe and the USA.
Whether using archive photographs (Zitta Sultanbayeva and Ablikim Akmullayev; Saule Suleimenova), working with staged photography (Said Atabekov; Oxana Shatalova; Regina Shepetia) or in Photoshop (Erbossyn Meldibekov; Malik Zenger), or shooting “live” (Alexander Ugay, Valery Kaliyev, Alexei Shindin), the artists are trying to produce a valid image of Kazakhstan – a country that did not exist before. Since the state has taken it upon itself to work at a representational level – sumptuous albums with photographs of the beauties of nature, lists of achievements and portraits of the president are published even more often than in Soviet times – the artists concentrate on an analysis of the situation, interpreting it from a contemporary post-modernist viewpoint. Irony, sarcasm and – frequently – genuine alarm accompany their commentaries on the state’s evolution towards authoritarianism, which is the reason for the unpopularity of contemporary art in Kazakhstan.
On the other hand, for all the state’s heightened political interest in history, the De Lazari collection, for example, is also unknown in Kazakhstan. The country has no museum of photography; the works of the prisoners of the Karlag are kept in the storerooms; the history of the twentieth century is taught selectively, and photography is not taught anywhere.
One more paradoxical situation – like the reverse side of the Elgin marbles, the consequence of a neglect of one’s own culture, of fear of a different opinion and of a tendentious forgetfulness.
A major contribution to the study of the region was made by the photographers who accompanied exploratory expeditions connected with the “Great Game” – the struggle between Russia and the British Empire for influence in Central Asia. A collection of ethnographic photographs was also put together by the exiled Pole Konstantin de Lazeri – in 2000 they were displayed by his heirs at an exhibition in Lodz.
Everyday photography also appeared. In 1873 Solomon Leibin opened a studio in the city of Verny (now Almaty) and in 1903 Dmitry Bagayev set up one in Pavlodar.
This brief list does not include the creators of picture postcards and family portraits that are kept in the archives of Kazakhstan’s museums and in private collections, because only a few people are really engaged in researching the history of photography in Kazakhstan.
Still, in comparison with the following period, right up to the 1960s, even that sparse information is a relative abundance, because in Soviet times Kazakhstan became one of the most secret areas of the USSR. The prisoners of the Karlag (Karaganda Corrective Labour Camp) included some outstanding artists – Lev Kropivnitsky, Yulo Sooster, Abram Cherkassky, Vladimir Sterligov, Artur Fonvizin, Heinrich Vogeler. This was the first part of a major artistic project on the part of the Soviet rulers that began a long chain of paradoxes – during the years of repression, more specifically in 1936, the first picture gallery was created in the republic’s capital, followed in 1937 by the College of Theatre and Art, while in 1940 the Artists’ Union of Kazakhstan held its first congress.
The enthusiasm of the participants in the process was so great that exhibitions were transported on camels, while sheepfolds and yurts were turned into exhibition spaces. Nonetheless, by the early 1950s a system of elite creative unions had been formed – composers, writers and cinematographers.
Khrushchev’s thaw led not only to the next paradox – the disbandment of the concentration camps and the construction of the Berlin Wall – but also to the less paradoxical idea of mass creativity. In 1963 fifteen photo-clubs were set up in Kazakhstan: photography was classed as the most “understandable” art form. This gave rise to a situation where the “higher” arts played the role of teacher (not badly paid, incidentally), and the “lower” ones that of pupil, expected to repeat the lessons using more readily available means and materials – unpaid and outside of working hours.
In 1987 the Artists’ Union of Kazakhstan numbered 300 members, and there were 187 photo-circles at schools, colleges and workplaces. Meanwhile the most “professional’ photographers – most of them self-taught or graduates of journalism faculties – were united by 27 photo-clubs.
Nevertheless, they were the ones that broke through the isolation. The magazine Sovetskoye foto published announcements of international competitions and in 1965 V. Belkov, a member of the Alma-Ata club Medeo, sent his works to Czechoslovakia, where they won him a diploma; then in 1969 he was awarded a silver medal in Italy.
His followers – Seidalin, Korenchuk and Suslin – continued the breakout into the wider world and today the Medeo photo-club can boast of having participated in 1,435 international exhibitions and 200 awards. But in the last decade, by the members’ own admittance, they have failed to keep up the pace, something they blame mainly on new technologies. Still the photo-clubs of the 1960s can and should be regarded as tender shoots of democracy, playing their small part in the development of society.
Since the Soviet authorities could not permit uncontrolled activities, the tried and tested mechanism of adaptation, blocking and censorship soon came into operation: in 1980 the state publishing house Oner was created and began putting out magnificent presentation albums of photographs, propaganda posters and postcards, while in 1989 the first congress of the Union of Photographic Artists of Kazakhstan took place. For all that, in the enduring hierarchy photography is still viewed as ancillary material, while the unions of art professionals continue to live a parallel, separate existence.
Nevertheless there is something that unites all the creative clans – a rejection of contemporary art that has, as they see it, intruded very effectively into their spheres of influence. A new type of artistic activity emerged in the early 1990s – together with independence and the declared course towards democratization of the country – changing the techniques, content and philosophy of art, mixing ideas, technologies and aesthetics. Overcoming geographical, historical and informational isolation, the new art manifested itself in a literally physical manner – performances were exceptionally popular in the mid-1990s. But in the new millennium the lead positions were taken by video and photography: the opening in Kazakhstan of offices of the British Council, Goethe-Institut, Soros Foundation and the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Almaty made it possible to study the history of art in the twentieth century, as did seminars and training courses given by invited specialists from Europe and the USA.
Whether using archive photographs (Zitta Sultanbayeva and Ablikim Akmullayev; Saule Suleimenova), working with staged photography (Said Atabekov; Oxana Shatalova; Regina Shepetia) or in Photoshop (Erbossyn Meldibekov; Malik Zenger), or shooting “live” (Alexander Ugay, Valery Kaliyev, Alexei Shindin), the artists are trying to produce a valid image of Kazakhstan – a country that did not exist before. Since the state has taken it upon itself to work at a representational level – sumptuous albums with photographs of the beauties of nature, lists of achievements and portraits of the president are published even more often than in Soviet times – the artists concentrate on an analysis of the situation, interpreting it from a contemporary post-modernist viewpoint. Irony, sarcasm and – frequently – genuine alarm accompany their commentaries on the state’s evolution towards authoritarianism, which is the reason for the unpopularity of contemporary art in Kazakhstan.
On the other hand, for all the state’s heightened political interest in history, the De Lazari collection, for example, is also unknown in Kazakhstan. The country has no museum of photography; the works of the prisoners of the Karlag are kept in the storerooms; the history of the twentieth century is taught selectively, and photography is not taught anywhere.
One more paradoxical situation – like the reverse side of the Elgin marbles, the consequence of a neglect of one’s own culture, of fear of a different opinion and of a tendentious forgetfulness.
Valeria Ibrayeva (Almaty)
