“In the Space of the New: Kazan Audiovisual Histories. Bulat Galeev” examines an important chapter in art from the second half of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first through the work of the Kazan Prometheus collective.
This is one of the first exhibitions in Kazan to survey the collective’s major projects. Led by scientist, artist and philosopher Bulat Galeev, Prometheus pioneered video and audiovisual art. Its synthesis of light and sound extended into architecture, design and exhibition making. Several of its performances, films, concerts and intelligent lighting systems were pioneering not only in the USSR but internationally.
Objects, installations, photographs, videos, sketches and articles from the archive fill the Museum of Islamic Culture with the colour and sound of Kazan’s search for a new aesthetics between the 1960s and the 2000s. One of the collective’s best-known architectural works was “Malinovy zvon” (meaning: mellow chimes in the raspberry light) at the Spasskaya Tower of the Kazan Kremlin in 1967.
Works shown publicly for the first time include “Kaleidophone-4R”, a manually controlled device that creates kaleidoscopic light effects. Photographs from Bulat Galeev’s archive trace the geography of Prometheus’s creative and research networks.
A central work is the computer installation “Singing Shamail”. Taking Baki Urmanche’s work as a point of reference, its authors used digital tools to give a new “voice” to a historic form of Tatar art. The installation links early twentieth-century Muslim art with media art of the early twenty-first century and shows how digital work can remain grounded in cultural tradition.
By working where technology, science and art meet, Bulat Galeev and Prometheus helped prepare audiences for contemporary media art and placed Kazan on the international cultural map. Presented during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the exhibition asks again where the boundaries of art lie.
