Install “Transformer” Meldibekov was supposed to appear in front of the Garage to the Mayday and slipmouths with the 2nd Triennale of contemporary Russian art. But the pandemic has mixed all the plans. In the end, “Transformer”, which decorates the square in Gorky Park in the framework of the project Square Garage Commission, was assembled in June and has become a very topical statement.
However, erbosan of Meldibekov interested in the fate of the monuments long before in the Harbor of Bristol drowned the bronze monument to the English tories and the slave trader Edward Coulson, and in Belgium dropped from the ship of modernity, the statue of king Leopold II, is known for its brutal colonial policy in the Congo. Shaggy 2009 at the exhibition in the NCCA could see the project “Family album”, which Meldibekov did with Nurbol Oricom. Photos of sisters and other relatives, taken against the backdrop of important monuments in the cities of Kazakhstan in the 1960-ies-1970-ies, the artists added images of the same characters in the same places 30 years later. And if the relatives were quite recognizable, the monuments are not. So, over the years the main characters of the old family pictures that was made on the occasion of weddings, was… Paris.
And Meldibekov moved the focus away from the figures on the background of the image. With characters on the scene. In the project “Competition”, where co-author Meldibekov was a historian and archivist, Boris Golender, this place has become one of the squares of Tashkent. It is remarkable that the monument, put on a century, succeeded each other then at an average speed of a monument in ten years. But the lives of many were even shorter. Each new monument not only hoped to perpetuate the ideas and the ideology that stood behind him, but above all “erases” the memory of the previous one.
for Example, the first in Turkestan European monument to the Governor-General of Turkestan Konstantin von Kaufman (Yes, the same one who argued with Vereshchagin about the accuracy of his paintings) was opened in may 1913, but lasted only four years. In 1917, at the empty pedestal hoisted the red flag, surrounded his captured guns – turned “revolution Monument”. Already in 1919 it was replaced by constructivist “Hammer and Sickle”, which also could serve as a podium during parades and rallies. By 1927, decided to erect a monument to the 10th anniversary of the revolution. Put a column with a dome, decorated with an inscription in Russian and Uzbek “October – the lighthouse of the world revolution”. All is good, but the inscription in the Uzbek language were done in Arabic script. In 1930 instead of a column put the trumpeter in front of him, a bust of Lenin, which is adorned with a timely slogan “Five-year plan in 4 years!”. After the war, the place on the pedestal, took the granite Stalin, but after the XXII Congress of the CPSU in 1961 the figure was removed, and the pedestal was decorated with slogans Ledthe IR of the French revolution, the list of which is added “peace, work, happiness”. In 1968 set a new monument – with the shaggy head of Marx. But in 1995 came the turn and him to step aside. The bronze horseman Amir Timur (aka Tamerlane) took center stage and gave the square its name.
to Shed tears over this mess of monuments, you will agree, is not necessary. Erbosyn of Meldibekov and no offers. Instead, he arranges an imaginary competition of projects of monuments of the past, laid claim to the same Central place, and a model for Assembly of five of the nine commemorative structures. In other words, the monument at the “Garage” will change for different holidays, turning into a toy transformer.
This translation of the history of monuments with rail ideology (every time consistently true and single) in formal exercise in the game, Meldibekov ironic and accurate. Before us is a set of geometric shapes. Precast designer, where the main thing – the ratio of the scale, stability, and rigor of the design, but not the similarity of the portrait with the original. On the contrary, the more similar the monument to other monuments, the more chances he has to be “recognized”. You can say, nothing personal.
the Paradox is that erbosyn of Meldibekov in this exemplary conceptual project and even wrote an autobiographical story about the sculptor who changes occupation. However, the artist willingly in all the interviews reiterates that went to study for a muralist because “this profession in Soviet times, it was prestigious, sculptors much money”, that you begin to suspect that he masterfully creates the image of the naive narrator, a “simple” guy from South Kazakhstan. If you keep in mind this simple-the narrator, in which the author erases its own individual features, the “Transformer” is, of course, about the constant rebuilding of identity of the common man. The day before yesterday he was a “Soviet man”, woke up yesterday a hero, today a resident of the global village, earning a living where there is work.
If to speak about the author, his transformation is determined not by ideological rebuilding, and personal reflection and work of the artist. The Assembly point was the fidelity to the vocation. Turned out to be good support.
