Storeroom - By Taus Makhacheva

Taus Makhacheva examines the importance of art and culture during times of great change. She is interested in the way in which different cultures and traditions interact. She questions the prevailing views of art and culture in a critical, but at the same time, humorous way. In the Storeroom exhibition the artworks of the Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts named after P.S. Gamzatova have central place: she had 68 artworks from the museum’s collection copied to use them in a number of performances. The best known is the video Tightrope (2015) in which Rasul Abakarov, a representative of the fifth generation of a family of tightrope dancers carries the artworks from the impressive Caucasian highlands across a ravine from one mountain top to another, risking his own life. 

The Van Abbemuseum bought the artwork together with the M HKA in Antwerp: Storeroom is a temporary home for the collection and the stories which Makhacheva created around the works. For example, there is the story of Maria Korkmasova and Khamisat Abdulaeva, two employees at the Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts named after P.S. Gamzatova, who prevented the theft of a painting by Alexander Rodchenko. In the video Super Taus (Untitled 2) 2016 Makhacheva’s alter ego “Super Taus” goes in search of a suitable place for her monument to this brave woman in an institute or a public space. By connecting the stories with elements from the rich Russian and Caucasian circus tradition, she imbues them with new energy and significance.

There will be a performance on Saturday 24 November, followed by a discussion with Taus Makhacheva and her guest, Rasul Abakarov, the tightrope dancer and brave protagonist in the Tightrope video. More information will soon become available about this.