The EURASIA Program of beuys on/off project invites Tokyo audiences to observe and reflect on felt, fat, and fictions in Central Eurasian contemporary art curated by Dominique Chen, an information scientist from Japan, and Selbi Jumayeva, a researcher from Turkmenistan.
On the 100th birthday of Joseph Beuys, Dominique invited Selbi to join him in co-leading the EURASIA program of beuys on/off project by Goethe Institute Tokyo. Dominique initially planned to organize an offline postal relay across Eurasia, but instead Selbi curated an unique opportunity for him to learn from, connect with, and immerse into the complex and multifold arts, science and culture community of contemporary Central Eurasia.
Starting his program as a ‘search for EURASIA’, a mythical Beuysian concept evoking collision of the West and East as manifest in Joseph Beuys himself, under the guidance of Selbi, Dominique gradually arrived into a reality of many de/entangled Easts of his own linked, looped, and shared with and his Eurasian peers. This curated online journey became an exchange of artistic perspectives, conceptual insights, and personal experiences documented in more than 60 hours of meetings and 500 pages of notes for Dominique and Selbi. This exhibition beuys on/off: felt, fat, and fictions stitches a few of those notes together with reflections of artists from Central Eurasia who truly own the felt in contemporary art, indulge in the fat of everyday life, and embrace the fictions in Central Eurasia.
Co-curators:
Dominique Chen, Selbi Jumayeva
Participating Artists:
Chingiz Aidarov
Talgat Berikov
Selbi Jumayeva
Mirbek Kadraliev
Ziliia Kanchurina
Altynai Osmoeva
Marat Rayimkulov
Graphic Design:
Dainippon Type Organization
Hosted by:
the Goethe Institut Tokyo
September 3 to 5, 2021