Arts & Culture

Forty steps to the top of the art
"40 Paintings of Forty Artists" is the title of the exhibition to officially commence at 6.30 p.m. on the 19 February 2003 in the Absheron Art Gallery. In fact, the exhibition consists of two parts, the opening event being its first part. The next exhibition will include forty graphic works of forty well-known Azeri artists. All the works put on show at the first and the second exhibition will be selected from our Gallery's collection. Our main goal certainly, is not to demonstrate the volume of our collection but to show the richness of the Azeri fine arts.
A few authors of exhibited works have passed away now. All three works of the deceased painters - Baba Aliyev, Eyyub Mammadov and Rashid Heydarzadeh - belong to the field of portraiture. Baba Aliyev's "Self-portrait" showing the painter and mentor's smiling face is striking by its look of joy. Eyyub Mammadov's "The portrait of a girl" somewhat leans toward the academic style and presents a professional example of a compositional layout. The view is enhanced not just by the composition and accessories (clothes, decorations), but also by the skillfully created imagary and masterly painting skills. If the two above mentioned portraits can be condionally aligned with the works that are worthy of setting them in a frame, then the "Pink Portrait" by Rashid Heydarzadeh is beautifully synchronized with the trends of Azeri painting of the seventies and eighties which is beginning to emerge out of the boundaries of the social realism.
The others 37 artists belong to different generations. Kamil Najafzadeh, Tofig Kerimov, Mir-Ismayil Jafarov and Altay Hajiyev represent the older generation of the fine arts masters. Ibrahim Rzayev, Farman Gulamov, Asif Azerelli, Nagdali Khalilov make up the middle generation, and Museib Amirov, Mammad Orujov, Tebriz Abdullayev, Yelena Hagverdiyeva, Zakir Huseynov, Sabina Shykhlinskaya make up the young group.
Some paintings may look familiar to regular visitors to our Gallery. The Gallery, during its six years of activity - we have held over forty art exhibitions - has put on show many of these paintings. However, paintings are perceived quite differently with time.
For instance, Ujal Hagverdiyev's work "Laura", Gennady Brizhatyuk's "Margarita (Faust)", Farman Gulamov's "The girlfriends", Siruz Mirzazadeh's "The woman with a cat" were the guest entries at the European Poets and Azeri Artists", that was held in February 1998 and won special popularity among the art fans. Therefore, the present exhibition can be viewed as finalizing milestone.
Several paintings were included in our collection on the eve of the exhibition. "The Still Life" by Mammad Orujov is done in classical brown colors. The viewer feels as if he is looking at a museum item and floats in the inner serenity of a museum atmosphere.
"The mountain village" by Elchin Nadirov is painted in riotous and bright thirsty colors and emanates exceptional optimism. Both paintings are done in narrow oblong composition arrangements. Such compositions are rare to see in shows - it is not very easy to make such a composition - but interior appearance is to their advantage.
Another new painting "The morning" comes from the brush of the renowned artist Tebriz Abdullayev.
There are many more interesting works included into the "The 40 Paintings of the Forty Artists" exhibition. There is no need to enumerate them all here. However, all of these works of art can collectively be called the forty steps to the top of the fine arts. But the order of those steps is for the spectators to define.
The exhibition will be held till 14 March 2003. The sponsor of the exhibition is the Langtech International Company.

First int'l modern music festival to be held in Baku
The first modern music festival called Sonorous String, Culture and Relations is due to open on February 19 at the Chamber Music Hall. Almost 45 musicians from 16 countries will take part in the festival organized by modern music center SONOR jointly with the Ministry of Culture and the German embassy in Azerbaijan. Musicians from Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, China, India and other countries will perform classical, national and modern compositions. British saxophone player Peter Furms and German conductor Diter Mak will hold master classes at the Music School named after Bulbul and the Kappelhouse within the festival framework. Representing Azerbaijan, musical band SONOR, Bakustic Jazz group, Mugam theater, and the State Symphony Orchestra after Hacibayov are planing to perform national and classical musical parts.
The festival comprising a synthesis of the Western and Eastern music will end on February 23.