Born 1964 in Tulkubas Railroad Station, Kazakhstan. He lives and works in Almaty.

Yerbossyn Meldibekov is an artist, who works with a variety of techniques, including sculpture, installation, performance, video and photography. The main theme of his art is the identification and fixation of political processes in Central Asia. He takes historical images, monuments, landscapes and heroes and re-appropriates them, using elements of humour and the absurd to explore the paradoxes embedded in the construction of national identity. In bringing together the changes in post-communist Central Asia, Meldibekov makes aggressive responses to both the Western and Russian avant-garde.

According to the artist, time flows differently in Central Asia — its cyclical nature exaggerated by both historical events repeating themselves and by the readiness of its people to accept these changes. While it would take years for new politics and policies to be accepted and implemented in the centre of power (Moscow), Central Asia would switch ideologies in a matter of days. This erasing of collective memory and the cyclical nature of time in Central Asia are at the core of Meldibekov’s work, manifest not only in his subject-matter but in his reusing and reworking of similar subjects and themes. The Russian avant-garde tried to create a new world; Meldibekov works on and with the fragments left by and after this old-new Communist ideology.

Notable recent group shows include Eurasian Utopia: Post Scriptum at the Suwon I’Park Museum of Art in Suwon (2018), Signature Art Prize at the National Museum of Singapore (2018), Suns and Neons above Kazakhstan at the Yarat in Baku (2017), BALAGAN!!! in Berlin (2015), the special project of the 6th Moscow Biennale Svoiia zemlia/Chuzhaia territoriia (2015), Grammar of Freedom at the Garage in Moscow (2015), 1st Kyiv Biennale (2012), 9th Gwandju Biennale (2012), Central Asia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011, 2005), Time of the Storytellers at KIASMA in Helsinki (2007), Progressive Nostalgia at Luigi Pecci Centre in Prato (2007).

Yerbossyn’s works are kept in important museum collections, including: M HKA | Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; M+ Museum, Hong Kong, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore; Devi Art Foundation, India; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; BPS22 Museum, Charleroi; Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; National Museum, Astana; Almaty Museum of Arts, Almaty.

CV

Portfolio

Cardinal, 2008

Peak of Lenin, 2013

Peak of Lenin, 2013

Self portrait, 2011

Untitled – from the Pastan series, 2007

Peak of Lenin, 2013