"Azat Minnekaev. Heavenly Wanderers"

The National Art Gallery "Khazine" of the Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Shigabutdin Marjani Foundation for Support and Development of Scientific and Cultural Programs (Moscow) present the exhibition "Azat Minnekaev. Heavenly Wanderers. ”

About a hundred paintings and graphic works by the artist Azat Shamilevich Minnekaev will be brought by the Marjani Foundation from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The artist’s biography is full of many sometimes unexpected, but interrelated events, each life turn naturally raises him to a new level and is reflected in his work. Painting, theater, book graphics are represented by the equivalent facets of the master’s great talent.

Azat Minnekaev was born in 1958 in Ufa. He graduated from the Ufa State Institute of Arts, faculty of easel painting. Since 1983, for seven years he worked as a stage designer at the Bashkir Puppet Theater. Azat Minnekaev designed more than thirty performances, staged plays in many Russian cities.

In 1990, Azat, as a production designer, went on a tour of the Magadan Theater to the city of Anchorage (Alaska). During his next visit to Alaska, he created many paintings, wrote American saints for the iconostasis of Anchorage Cathedral. In 1992, the artist spent six months in Alaska as a guest of the Aleutian Corporation of St. Paul’s Island at the personal invitation of the governor. Since that time, the nature and cultural traditions of the peoples of the North have become one of the main topics of his work.

Then Azat ended up in Vologda, where he worked on the picturesque Chukotka Series. After many years of testing, having gained tremendous life experience, the artist decides to live in St. Petersburg. In 1993, a personal exhibition of Azat Minnekaev “People and Spirits of Old Alaska” was held in St. Petersburg in the Kunstkamera. In the same year, another of his exhibitions was held - “Peoples of Siberia: Cultural Revival” in Paris, at the National Center for Scientific and Cultural Research.

In 1995, the exhibition of the works of Azat Minnekaev “The Blue Sky of Shamans” was opened at the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow). In the same year, the artist prepared illustrations for the book of Russian epics. And a year later, for work on this book, he was awarded a diploma of the 2nd degree of the All-Russian competition of the children’s book "Father’s House". Since then, Azat has become professionally engaged in book graphics.

In 1996, Azat Minnekaev joined the Union of Artists of Russia (St. Petersburg branch).

Traveling to Eastern Siberia, Mongolia, and China have become decisive for the artist’s creativity and in many ways his worldview. The cultural traditions of the Khakasses, Tuvans, inextricably linked with the nature of this region - the theme of the "Turkic cycle" of paintings presented at the exhibition. In the paintings of Azat, the ancient history of the earth comes to life, in which the remains of the representatives of the great peoples - the ancient Türks rest. Secret paths, mystical spells of shamans, ghostly warriors… The Great Spirit of Tengri Sky dominates everything.

“My work may seem fantastic. But this is an absolute reality. I create my reality in which there is pace, strength and energy of those places. Canvas for me is a shamanic tambourine, a brush is a mallet. I do not like to frame my paintings. What can be the frame? It’s like a tambourine in a case… ".

The exposition will introduce the graphic works of Azat Minnekaev. Even small sketches for literary works are picturesque and monumental. Viewers will see the sketches, which later became illustrations for the book “The Tale of Yusuf”, published in London, a collection of Tatar fairy tales published by the Marjani Foundation (the book has already become a bibliographic rarity). This year, the Marjani Foundation will publish a book of the Tatar epos "Idegas", designed by the artist. Illustrations for the Idean dostan are also presented at the exhibition.

Exhibition curator: Maria Filatova