Almagul Menlibayeva
Born 1969 in Almaty, Kazakh SSR.
Lives and works in Almaty and Berlin.
Video artist and photographer Almagul Menlibayeva holds an MFA from the Art and Theatre University of Almaty. She works primarily in multi-channel video, photography and mixed media installation and her work addresses such critical issues of post-Soviet modernity as social, economic, and political transformations in Central Asia, de-colonial re-imaginings of gender, environmental degradation, and Eurasian nomadic and indigenous cosmologies and mythologies.
In conjunction with her solo exhibition ‘Transformation’ at the Grand Palais in Paris (France, 2016 – 2017), she was awarded the prestigious Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture in 2017. Other awards include the ‘Daryn’ State Prize of Kazakhstan (1996), and the ‘Tarlan’ National Award of the Club of Maecenas of Kazakhstan (2003).
She was also the Winner of the Grand Prix Asia Art at the II Biennial of Central Asia, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (1995) and the Winner of the Main Prize of the International Film Festival Kino Der Kunst (2013) in Munich, Germany.
Press
Genius Loci: Kazakh Almagul Menlibayeva’s Visions Of Post-Soviet Asia
Based between Berlin and Almaty, Menlibayeva’s photographs capture social and ecological change in Central Asia.
HARPER'S BAZAAR ARABIA , August 4, 2019
Kazakhstan's first international exhibition reveals a craving for culture in Nur-Sultan
Kazakhstan's first international art exhibition in its recently renamed capital, Nur-Sultan, reflects a desire for culture in a rapidly changing city. Racing the Galaxy, curated by the French curator Jérôme Sans and Kazakh curator Dina Baitassova, brings together 20 international and Kazakh artists, including Michelangelo Pistoletto, Ange Leccia, Mircea Cantor, Almagul Menlibayeva and Askhat Akhmediyarov.
The Art Newspaper, July 15, 2019
Mapping cultural transformations in Central Asia
Almagul Menlibayeva was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 1969. As an artist who has experienced the Soviet era as well as the post-Soviet era changes in her country, and as a prominent female voice in the region, she focuses on contemporary social and ecological issues in Central Asia and Kazakhstan from a feminine perspective. Her work explores the cultural transformations that have taken place over the centuries across Central Asia to understand the evolution of contemporary Kazakh society and draw attention to important regional and global issues.
Gulf News, June 01, 2019
Channels Festival: International Biennial of Video Art 2019
This year’s sweeping program of Australian and international video art explores difference, connectivity, power and place.
Channels Festival has been putting video art under the spotlight since 2012. And this year’s diverse and inclusive program is no different.
Broadsheet, September 15, 2019
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Considering Contemporary Strategies of Activist Curating and Art Making in Sharjah
SHARJAH, UAE — An integral part of the Sharjah Art Foundation’s work, together with its biennial and the broad-based arts programming that takes place year-round, is the annual, three-day March Meeting – a gathering in a themed symposium format of practitioners, organizers, curators, commentators, and friends, and an important networking hub. The first Meeting, in 2008, was launched as a forum for art professionals in the region to network and collaborate on future events and programs...
Hyperallergic Media Inc, August 16, 2018
Focus On: Dubai’s Only Central Asian Art Gallery
Dubai’s Andakulova Gallery is paving the way in the Middle East for Central Asian art, from a region rich with cultural production and an anthropological edge that is steadily gaining international traction. Founding director Natalya Andakulova shares why we should be paying attention.
HARPER'S BAZAAR ARABIA, August 14, 2017
Mapping cultural transformations in Central Asia
WHEN CRITIC BORIS GROYS heard that this year’s Moscow Biennale would be called “How to Gather?” he reportedly replied: “Simple. As enemies.”
This sentiment saturated the event’s closing keynote, which was delivered last Thursday with moderate fanfare by Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece (and sometime desk editor of Witte de With’s online journal, WdW Review).
ARTFORUM, October 11, 2015
The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7)
Since 1993, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) has been the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art’s flagship contemporary art exhibition. The only major series in the world to focus exclusively on Asia, the Pacific and Australia, the APT’s acquisition program and commissioning focus have built an internationally renowned collection of contemporary Asian and Pacific art for the Gallery.
e-flux, October 23, 2012
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Around Town: Sharjah March Meetings
t’s early evening in Sharjah. I’m one of 100-odd people sitting in an outdoor square, flanked by the cubic buildings of the city’s old town. Before us glows a cartoonish diorama of a Mediterranean city: red-roofed houses, a pink river, city walls and crumbling towers. On stage, around 20 men begin to tap the lulling baritone of jahlahs and clay-pot drums, singing fidjeri, the songs sung by pearl divers in the Gulf.
FRIEZE, April 13, 2018
«Я каждый день снимаю видеохронику преображения этого конкретного места»
Алмагуль Менлибаева выставляется на всевозможных интернациональных биеннале с 2005 года. Только в Венеции ее работы показывали, кажется, трижды (в том числе в этом году), не говоря уже о биеннале в Сиднее, Киеве и Москве (Менлибаева участвовала в Четвертой Московской биеннале в 2011-м). Сейчас ее большая эффектная работа расположена в купольном зале Центрального павильона ВДНХ.
The Art Newspaper Russia, 28 сентября 2015
Сколько стоят работы самого известного в мире казахстанского художника
Алмагуль Менлибаева – самый известный в мире и самый смелый современный казахстанский художник. Ее работы, исследующие мифологию (современную в том числе), поражают энергией и интенсивностью цвета, ясностью и продуманностью композиционных решений, оригинальностью мысли. Связывая воедино легенды и реальную жизнь, пейзаж и человека, архитектуру и фауну, она создает масштабные фрески посредством новых технологий, представляя Казахстан в совершенно новых, оригинальных ракурсах.
Forbes Kazakhstan, 21 декабря 2017