THE GREAT ROOM 1508 LONDON

7 Howick Place, London SW1P 1BB

Press Release AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS BY

ACQUAINTANCE
Curated by Nadim Samman 6 20 OCTOBER 2011 LONDON

On October 6, an exhibition of paintings by the prominent Azerbaijani artist, Farkhad Khalilov, opens in The Great Room 1508. Acquaintance is his first showing in the UK, and features 15 paintings Most are acrylic on canvas, and impress with their geometric expression, their pensive colors, and their size in the range of 2 meters-by-2 meters. Khalilov was born in the East and his mind was sharpened in the capital of the Soviet empire, but his paintings are pungent, ascetic and austere. His art is marked by a minimalist formal vocabulary. While they are commonly mistaken as abstract paintings, in fact they record the impact of the Azeri oilfields and countryside on the artist. We can see this effect most clearly in the series Unexpected views of which four works are in the current exhibition. Five of the paintings in the exhibition are from the series Meeting that Khalilov has been working on over the past three decades. Ever since his time in Moscow the artists work tells the truth of his relationship to landscape. Hailing from Baku, the city of wind and fire, the truth of these surroundings is intense. A flame is the symbol that represents the city on flags, and this emblem is because of the burning ground eternal fire, which springs from the rocky earth mere kilometres outside town and near the artists studio. To get there, as Khalilov does almost every day, he must pass by an expansive oilfield more than a thousand winching pumps, ceaseless in their movement, amid reflective pools of crude.

Khalilovs compositions have a spatial sensuality, and they are structured as music pieces, as ancient chants or Azerbaijani mugams based on a single theme with numerous variations both along horizontal and vertical lines. The visual series have been created thanks to spontaneous illuminations rather than conscious construction. In the contemporary art world today Khalilov is an outsider and a rebel, who has struggled against the tide in an era when Conceptualism holds sway. Many think that art must contain some sort of deeper meaning not visible to the eye, but Khalilov's paintings are the art of direct application. He is not a symbolist and does not play with hidden meanings and codified metaphors. People perceive it as more or less abstract work, says Khalilov. Thats funny to me because these canvases are what I saw or felt. I sit and look and draw. Biography Farkhad Khalilov was born in 1946 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Khalilov studied at the prestigious Stroganov Institute of Art in Moscow and played and active role in the underground art scene, mixing with well know figures including Ilya Kabakov, Natalia Nesterova, and Oleg Tselkov. Khalilov is a member of the Thaw Generation that came of age during Nikita Khrushchevs reign as Soviet premier. Chief among the novel social conditions affecting this generations outlook was the relative easing of state repression inaugurated by the new leaders Secret Speech at the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956, in which de- Stalinization was announced. Khalilovs nonconformist career led to a run-in with the authorities of the institute where he studied. Subsequently, they transferred him to a less prestigious school, but this dispute with the rector marked out Khalilov among his peers as someone prepared to stand up for principles. In 1987, Khalilov became a Chairman of the Artists Union of Azerbaijan. He also served as an MP in the Azerbaijani Parliament.

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For more information about Farkhad Khalilov please visit his official website: www.farkhadkhalilov.com For more information please contact the exhibition's international press agent, John Varoli PR:

John Varoli Russia +7 921 949 9268 jdvaroli@gmail.com

Daria Gonciarenko London +44 775 414 4773 d.gonciarenko@gmail.com

Jacqueline Varoli New York +1 917 991 5782 jvaroli.pr@gmail.com

Alexandra Volken-Ni Berlin +49 178 513 3902 alexandra.volken.ni@gmail.com