From Ruins to Reinvention: Three Exhibitions of Soviet Uzbek Painting in 1928, 1934, and 1937

• In Event: Visual Culture in Central Asia I: Repetition and Reenactment

Abstract

This paper examines three exhibitions of Soviet “Uzbek” painting: the 1928 AKhRR-organized exhibition in Tashkent and two exhibitions held in Moscow in 1934 and 1937. It explores how “Uzbek” painting changed over this ten-year period, particularly in the formation of Uzbek Socialist Realism. Analyzing the artworks, discourses published in periodicals and books, and discussions occurring in the Uzbek Artists’ Union, this paper considers how representations of national identity were reinforced, adapted, or reinterpreted across these exhibitions through to shifting and recurrent visual depictions and references to historical narratives.

Author

• Natasha Klimenko, Freie U Berlin (Germany)