Open Ceremony of an Avant-garde Painting Exhibition of Works from the National State Museum of Arts of Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan at UNESCO HQ
Open Ceremony of an Avant-garde Painting Exhibition of Works from the National State Museum of Arts of Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan
On Monday 26 September 2022, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Khiva Declaration, an exhibition of Avant-garde paintings from the State Museum of Art of the Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan, was organised by the Government of Uzbekistan with support from the UNESCO Office in Tashkent and inaugurated at UNESCO HQ in Paris.
The exhibition was opened with speeches from H.E. Mr Umid Shadiev, Ambassador, Permanent Delegate of Uzbekistan to UNESCO and Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, Gabriela Ramos.
‘Avantgarde’ is an exciting art movement dating to the first half of the 20th century. It is universal, not only in terms of its different styles, branches, and concepts, but also in terms of its geographical scope. The artist Igor Savitskiy was a passionate supporter of the avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s and was amongst the first to understand and appreciate its originality. The Karakalpakstan State Museum of Art - also referred as “The Louvre of the Steppe” - named after Savitsky houses a unique collection of Turkestan (Modern Central Asia) avant-garde art, also sometimes referred to by specialists as ‘Central Asian avant-garde', or ‘Uzbekistan avant-garde'. The Savitsky Collection of avant-garde art, as it is known, is one of the largest in the world totalling around 10,000 pieces. The Central Asia avant-garde paintings displayed at UNESCO HQ were all taken from this collection.
The exhibition was organized within the framework of the ‘Khiva Process’ an initiative which was launched in 2021 by the government of Uzbekistan and aims to facilitate policy dialogue for equitable and inclusive societies in Central Asia. The ‘Khiva Process’ is supported by various UNESCO programmes including the Silk Roads, Intercultural Dialogue, Anti-Racism, Youth, and Sports programmes.
