The Friends of the S.M.A.K. invited Meggy Rustamova to exhibit in 'De Vereniging'.
Over the past few years, Meggy Rustamova (°1985, Tbilisi, Georgia) has developed an interdisciplinary oeuvre consisting of photographic works, videos, installations and performances. Her work is a distinctly poetic look at the relationship between individual and collective memory, between language as communication and visual vocabulary. She searches for ways to translate contemporary social tendencies and issues into her own work, often by means of microhistories. Using images and text, she tells stories by way of association, exploring the boundary between fact and fiction. Equally characteristic of Rustamova’s work is the presence of nature and landscapes and the relationship between fauna and flora and mankind. The beauty of the often optimistic-looking images hides a certain melancholy or desire for utopia, an all too human tendency.
The title of this exhibition, HORAIZON, refers to the phonetic pronunciation of the word ‘horizon’, the dividing line where the earth’s surface and the sky meet. The horizon as a ‘boundary’ or ‘line’ is equally present in language, when reading between the lines, or when travelling between international borders. The outlines of land and trees or buildings that contrast with the sky, but also the outlines of shadows can be observed in many of the images in the exhibition. The works suggest a desire for what lies behind the horizon, inviting the viewer on an imaginary journey. They form one spatial installation, as it were, bringing together various media, including the triptych Observations, the recent video Babel and a number of new photographic works.
Artist Edition and New Publication
On the occasion of the exhibition and the launch of the book Horaizon, Rustamova has created an art edition (published by Posture Editions and The Friends of S.M.A.K.).
The edition is called 1000 km in vogelvlucht — 621,371 miles at Bird’s Eye View and unfolds as a storyboard consisting of a series of photographs of the sky-cum-flying-birds taken by the artist over the past two years, for example a condor in Arizona and kelp gulls in Iceland, in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. The work aims to create a story that reflects on the individual’s daily need for freedom, travel and nature. This edition of 15 copies will be accompanied by an autographed copy of the publication Horaizon. (For more information: info@vriendensmak.be)
Short Biography
Meggy Rustamova lives and works in Brussels and Sint-Niklaas. She obtained her Master’s degree in visual arts at KASK, Ghent (2006-2011), studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin (2010) and enrolled in a postgraduate course at HISK (2012-2013). In 2011, Rustamova was invited to participate in Coming People at S.M.A.K., an exhibition of recently graduated young artists. Almost a decade later, we welcome her again for this solo exhibition. In the meantime, she has exhibited at various places, both nationally and internationally, such as Kanal - Centre Pompidou, Brussels (2019), de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (2017), Kunsthalle Wien (2015), the 6th Moscow Biennale (2015) and Salzburger Kunstverein (2014).
