Mardjani Foundation
The concept of the exhibition, which is deliberately titled “Scores by Magomed Kazhlaev”, aims to demonstrate the distinctive “musical” expressiveness of the works of Magomed Kazhlaev, a master of Russian abstract art of the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries.
The artist’s creative path spans more than half a century of continuous painterly experimentation. Having received an academic art education, he turned to abstraction as early as the 1970s, gradually developing his own visual language. His art evolves in dialogue with the modernist tradition, while maintaining a deep connection with the culture of Dagestan – its ancient sign systems and ornamental structures.
The exhibition presents more than 60 works from different decades and creative series, drawn from the artist’s own collection, private collections, and the Mardjani Foundation. Early figurative works coexist with expressive abstraction, compositions incorporating letters, words, and fragments of texts, the series “Kilims” and “Letters of a Dissenter”, and the monochrome painting of recent years.
Geometry and ornament, line and color, texture and word form a complex system of interrelationships in which the artist’s personal experience is correlated with historical memory and the artistic discoveries of the 20th century. The engagement with various artistic traditions is accompanied by a continuous search for new expressive means and ways of organizing pictorial space.
The artist’s creative path spans more than half a century of continuous painterly experimentation. Having received an academic art education, he turned to abstraction as early as the 1970s, gradually developing his own visual language. His art evolves in dialogue with the modernist tradition, while maintaining a deep connection with the culture of Dagestan – its ancient sign systems and ornamental structures.
The exhibition presents more than 60 works from different decades and creative series, drawn from the artist’s own collection, private collections, and the Mardjani Foundation. Early figurative works coexist with expressive abstraction, compositions incorporating letters, words, and fragments of texts, the series “Kilims” and “Letters of a Dissenter”, and the monochrome painting of recent years.
Geometry and ornament, line and color, texture and word form a complex system of interrelationships in which the artist’s personal experience is correlated with historical memory and the artistic discoveries of the 20th century. The engagement with various artistic traditions is accompanied by a continuous search for new expressive means and ways of organizing pictorial space.
Organizers and participants
Andrey Cheglakov Foundation for the Support and Implementation of Cultural Programmes, The Mardjani Foundation, Collection of Magomed Kazhlaev, private collections