Art is dead. Long live art!

Asror Muradov was born and received his art degree in Dushanbe. Later he came to Ukraine and lived in Kamianets for a long time and then in Kyiv. At some point he felt the boundedness of the academic school, a subject with which artists traditionally work. Since then he started his research and finally found himself in symbiosis with music. Muradov’s works are inspired by music and rhythms. That is why the energy to make a stroke is more important for the artist than the subject of the painting. Muradov’s art is trying to understand the Life phenomenon as a constant dynamic flow, it strives to broaden the scope of the world-view available for a person.

“Asror Muradov represents quite peculiar art,” says Mykola Skyba, the exhibition’s curator and general director deputy of the National Art Museum of Ukraine. “It is being created in times when art as part of an art school is almost depleted, when we see the beginning of new forms of visual expression. It is obvious that art will not fade away, but gradually it is turning into a rarity. It is just like the ancient music instruments that our contemporaries play but which cannot convey the anxieties of the 21st century. In due time art experienced great success, especially at the end of the 19th century. It could talk to people just like cinematography in its time, but now the Internet rules. But art will not have such an audience, power of expression, or magical influence any more. Thus, it still goes up in prices at auctions but other forms of the art are chucking it out. Gradually art will become a hobby, a personal statement. There is even such a trend as home art.”

Actually, the equinox metaphor is connected with this: you can see both the Moon and the Sun at the same time. And in art we can see the colors of old art and the new one. The newness in the works of Muradov is found in operating certain senses. Just like the sun lights up the skies before dying out during after dusk, so art has a brilliant final stand, as it is becoming depleted.

“I would call the style that Asror Muradov represents intuitive expressionism. Its inner impulse does not come from school, tradition or actual context but depth of cultural experience combined with spiritual impulse,” Skyba says.

Asror Muradov’s exhibition will last until October 20 in the Maister-Klas cultural education center (Kyiv, I. Mazepy, 34).