Taus Makhacheva

Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan

Moscow, ARTPLAY Design Center, 4^th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Rewriting Worlds, 2011
Liverpool, LJMU Copperas Hill Building, 7^th Liverpool Biennial: City States, Topography of Masculinity, 2012
Düsseldorf, Kunst im Tunnel, I am who I am, 2012
Southampton, John Hansard Gallery, Quarantania, 2012
Sharjah, Maraya Contemporary Art Centre, Migrasophia, 2012
Moscow, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Innovation Prize, Winner in the New Generation category, 2012
Kalmar, Kalmar Konstmuseum, The Process or Instance of Breaking Open: Taus Makhacheva, 2013 

Taus Makhacheva’s life incorporates the most diverse cultural experiences; born in Moscow, she was raised between there and Dagestan, her place of origin. The artist continued her education in London at the Goldsmith University and then at the Royal College of Art. Particularly grateful for receiving a Western education, Makhacheva remarks that it has expanded her artistic horizons and allowed to apprehend her heritage in a new light. Working in performance, video and photography, Dagestan remains an inexhaustible field of research for the artist. From her distanced position, Makhacheva tries to rethink and critically capture her motherland. Being a granddaughter of prominent poet Rasul Gamzadov, she is always accepted as an insider into the Dagestan community and is therefore exposed to most diverse subcultures and sub-communities hidden from the Western eye. With an evident anthropological interest, Taus Makhacheva explores issues of identity, narrative and construction of history, gender roles and stereotypes.

Western art has been historically preoccupied with issues of femininity. Instead, Taus Makhacheva embarks on a research of masculinity. The Caucasus are almost equally obsessed with signs of masculinity as the West has been with those of femininity. It is the most vivid place to observe a constantly exercised masculine performance. There is a prevalent macho symbolism in the Caucasus that Makhacheva's Topography of Masculinity explores. Focused on the stereotypes attributed to male categories such as competitiveness, violence and the urge for leadership, the series is composed of three videos. The present lot is a still from The Fast and the Furious. The photographs capture a 4x4 car in various landscapes; among the blooming field flowers, during the sunset on a deserted land and descending from a hill in wild nature. The car itself is customised, completely covered in fur coats found at the flea markets in Moscow. Makhacheva creates a hybrid of most recognisable commodities that have come to convey so much about the region: a fur coat for a woman to define her social status and a car for a man to comment on his wealth. These coats have almost become family reliquaries, being passed on from generation to generation, whereas many men take huge loans to buy 4x4 cars. The prime inspiration for the work was the illegal street racers' community in Dagestan. However, expanding the context, Makhacheva points to almost psychopathic desire to feed the ego and validate a status of power in such a superficial way. Ironically enough when her customised car was exposed to the audience of street racers, her attempts to critique the society were dismissed and most of them saw ‘a really new cool way to sup up their cars’[1].

The deserted but splendid landscapes create an incongruously romantic mood turning the car into a fearless knight; however, the fur covering effeminizes it. Researching car advertisements, Makhacheva realised the selling point was the bestiality: in purchasing a car the owner acquires a wild animal and ultimately becomes the ferocious beast himself. The title The Fast and the Furious, borrowed from Hollywood, also has animalistic connotations. The romanticised franchise of illegal street car racers involved in quasi-criminal activities are ubiquitously admired by the Caucasian racers, albeit their own competitions are lacking the glamour of the former.

The video and photo series Fast and Furious has won Taus Makhacheva the Innovation Art Prize in the category of New Generation in 2012. Highly appraised by the international art community, the Topography of Masculinity was exhibited at the 7^th Liverpool Biennial 2012 among other notable shows.

[1]From ‘Quarantania’ Artist  and Curator talk, Southampton 2012http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBBeaarJcJk