Rustam Khalfin (October 14, 1949 – December 31, 2008) was a Kazakh contemporary artist, painter and architect.
Rustam Khalfin | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1949-10-14)October 14, 1949 Tashkent, Uzbek SSR |
| Died | December 31, 2008(2008-12-31) (aged 59) Almaty, Kazakhstan |
| Nationality | USSR (until 1991), Kazakhstan (since 1991) |
| Alma mater | Moscow Architectural Institute |
| Style | Painting, Video Art, Photo Art, Installation Art, Performance Art |
| Movement | Contemporary Art |
| Website | https://khalfin.foundation |
Rustam Khalfin is considered one of the most influential artists of Central Asia of the 20th century,[1] he was one of the pioneers in performance, installation and video art and had a major influence on the art community of the region. He developed the concept of nomad aesthetics with contemporary vision.
Born in 1949 in Tashkent in the family of a battle-front veteran Nurmukhamed Abdrakhmanovich Khalfin (years of life: 1909 - 1974). Rustam's brother Marat Nurmukhamedovich Khalfin was a Soviet and Russian scientist (years of life: 1940 - 2020).
In 1950, Rustam and his family moved to Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR, where he spent his life.
In 1972 he graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute.
He was a student of Vladimir Sterligov, a prominent representative of the Russian avant-garde, and throughout the 1970s and 1990s he was a member of his circle of successors[2] who developed the “chalice-dome consciousness” theory.
In 1999 he opened his own LOOK gallery.[3]
In 2005, Khalfin's works were exhibited in the Central Asia Pavilion at the prestigious Venice Biennale, it was the moment when Kazakhstani contemporary art was presented to the world for the first time.[4]
Rustam's wife and muse was the artist Lidia Blinova, together they regularly held "apartment" shows.
Today, there are 200+ works known that are part of the heritage of Rustam Khalfin: paintings, installations, drawings, photographs, texts and much more.
Among the major and well-known projects of the artist: “Eurasian Utopia”, (including “Clay Project”, “Lazy Project”), “Northern Barbarians”. Khalfin started working on the monumental installation “Clay Project. Level Zero” in 1999. The installation consisted of an 18-meter human figure which extended over two stories. For Khalfin, this project was a metaphor for "the disconnectedness of people in today's world, and in particular the [Almaty] artistic community”. According to Khalfin's idea, the installation was supposed to “call for consolidation, understanding the situation in contemporary art and developing a strategy that could introduce Kazakhstan to the international cultural community”.[5] Rustam Khalfin created the concept of “pulotas” – a simultaneous combination of emptiness and fullness. This word refers to a simple plastic object formed between fingers clenched into a fist - it does not matter if it is air or a piece of clay. His works are kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery (Russia), the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey (USA), the M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgium), the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts in Almaty, the National Museum of Kazakhstan in Astana, as well as in other museums and private collections.
Alexander Brener, artist and writer, wrote about Khalfin in his book “The Lives of The Murdered Artists”: “Rustam entered the painting art not as a handicraft and self-taught, but as a student of a powerful modernist tradition - Cezanne and Seurat, Braque and Picasso, Malevich and Sterligov, Robert Delaunay and Serge Poliakoff, Nicolas de Staël and Giorgio Morandi. Rustam called this line “plastic form making” and considered it the most important phenomenon in the new fine arts. “Plasticity” was his favorite concept. By plasticity, he understood the combination of the primary, simplest tactile experience with intelligent vision, with an educated eye”[6]
His works have been featured in prestigious exhibitions such as the Central Asia Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), Off the Silk Road: No Mad's Land, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2002) and re-orientation: Kunst zu Mittelasien, ACC Gallery, Weimar (2002).
Selected exhibitions'[7]:
2020, Rustam Khalfin. Self-Portrait Without A Mirror. A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 2016, Eurasian Utopia, NCCA (National Centre for Contemporary Arts), Moscow 2007, Rustam Khalfin. Retrospective. Love Races, White Space Gallery in St Peter’s, London Intim – In Time, Soros Center for Contemporary Art, Almaty 2005, Retrospective Exhibition, Tengri-Umai Gallery, Almaty 2003, Nordic Nomads, CAC Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius 1996, In honor of L.B., Rukh Gallery, Gallery Parade-96, A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts, Almaty. 1994, Hand and Eye, Studio 20 Gallery, Moscow 1985, Rustam Khalfin. Painting, former workshop of T.N. Glebova, Leningrad
In 2021, Ruslan Khalfin, the artist’s nephew and heir, founded the Rustam Khalfin Public Kazakhstani Foundation.[8] The Foundation’s goal is to preserve and study Rustam Khalfin’s oeuvre. It is managed by the board of trustees made up of high-profile and well-known specialists in Kazakhstan.[9]
All rights to the heritage of the artist Rustam Khalfin belong to the heir Ruslan Khalfin.[10]
1. Zitta Sultanbaeva/Asya Nuriyeva. Art Atmosphere of Alma-Ata – Almaty, 2016. ISBN 978-601-7283-29-2 2. Rustam Khalfin Seeing Through the Artist’s Hand - White Space Gallery London 2007. ISBN 978-0-9557394-0-8 3. Alexander Brener. The Lives of The Murdered Artists – Moscow, 2017. ISBN 978-5-87987-110-4