Performance Art in Kazakhstan

Live art and action art in Kazakhstan.

Қазақстандағы тірі өнер және экшн өнері.

From the Soviet fall through the country’s process of reclamation, Kyzyl Tractor’s earlier works scrutinize structures of national Kazakh identity, memory, and ritual, and, more broadly, humanity’s socio-psychological programming as a call to consciousness in relation to nomadic philosophies in a modern world. The member’s recent individual works address the country’s booming economic growth and steady integration of global financial practices, the role of digitalization, commerce, climate degradation, and the clashes of civilizations in our present history, referred to as the age of Anthropocene.

At the core of Kyzyl Tractor’s practice is a Sufi call to questioning the truth—a multilayered inquiry guided by the spirit of all things connected to nature, the cosmos and living in the present moment. This notion of time and truth is particularly apparent through the collective’s radical, open-air performances and monumental sculptures, which are unquestionably created as ephemeral acts that reject the rules of traditional institutional spaces, exhibition making, and collection building. (Focus Kazakhstan)