Art & Cultural History

Week of Culture: The Second Day

via “State News Agency of Turkmenistan”

The large-scale cultural action – the Week of Culture, which rich programme includes various events revealing the diversity of the national culture, is held in the northern region of the country. The second day events can be united by a conceptual idea – creativity in the course of the history.

The second day of the Week started with the visit to sacred places. Workers of culture and art made a pilgrimage to the Mausoleum of Ashyk Aydyn Pir, a nurser of creative people located on the territory of Ruhubelent Etrap. Then forum participants visited the Kunya-Urgench State Historical and Cultural Complex. As is known, in 2005, the ruins of Kunya-Urgench were inscribed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites. At present, there are over 20 architectural monuments of various epochs In Dashoguz Velayat. Each of them bears evidence of the former greatness of the capital of the ancient Turkmen state, a largest centre of the East.

Forum participants visit the Mausoleum of Nadjmeddin Kubra – a recognized national place of pilgrimage, and the Dash Mosque – a museum of national crafts, from where the pilgrimage route to the Uch Yuz Altmysh Memorial Complex starts. Conference participants also visited the world-known mausoleums of Il-Arslan, Tekesh, Sultan-Ali, Turabek-Hanym, and other sights located on the territory of they unique reserve that is an integral part of the Turkmen people’s cultural heritage and the whole humanity as well.

The solemn ceremony of opening of the International Conference of Art that brought together famous Turkmen painters, masters of the decorative and applied art as well as their foreign colleagues in Dashoguz took place at the Dashoguz Velayat Museum of Local History.

Participants of the Week of Culture had an opportunity to see museum exhibits as well as to watch a documentary film dedicated to the ancient monuments of the northern region of our country and its modern tourist infrastructure. The film created by Turkmen cinematographers is the first part of a cycle “Trip to the history” as an excursion to the history of the national culture and art.

In the evening, word painters from different countries gathered together in the improvised Turkmen village on the bank of the Shavat River to participate in the poetry readings.

The second day of the Week of Culture in Dashoguz finished by mobile expositions and a big concert performed by masters of culture and art of Dashoguz and Mary Velayats at the Georogly Square.

This day of the big creative holiday demonstrated that the contemporary national culture ha absorbed the best of the rich historical, literary, musical, and artistic heritage, folklore and crafts, traditions and customs of our people.

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Coming Exhibition: Fabric of Belonging: Exotic Quilts From Pakistan & India

“Fabric of Belonging: Exotic Quilts From Pakistan & India”

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Who: BYU Museum of Art

When: June 27, 2014 – Nov. 28, 2015 (Mon-Sat. 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.)

Where:

Brigham Young University Museum of Art
North Campus Drive
Provo, Utah 84602

How Much: Generally Free, some special exhibits require a ticket.

More Information: Here.

“Showcasing ralli quilts from the exceptional contemporary textile collection of Patricia Ormsby Stoddard, Fabric of Belonging explores how historical traditions contribute to the deep sense of belonging that ralli quilts provide for people living in the areas of Sindh, Pakistan and West India. For their owners, ralli quilts are a personal form of identification that connects them with their region and their heritage.

Both Hindu and Muslim women make ralli quilts. Without quilting frames or modern fabrics, they create these stunning works of art with thousands of minute, closely sewn quilting stitches and exquisite pieced, appliqued and embroidered patterns.

Stoddard, who holds a Ph.D. in textiles and served as an assistant professor at Brigham Young University, collected these remarkable quilts while living with her husband in Pakistan for several years. She is the author of Ralli Quilts: Traditional Textiles from Pakistan and India (2003). Through her collecting and research, she has brought the beauty of rallis to the attention of the world. . . .”

Artsy Bench

“Spaghetti Bench” by Pablo Reinoso

The Prehistoric Cave, Grotte Chauvet, in France now a World Heritage Site

by AFP via “Courier Mail”

IT IS a cave so closely guarded that only three people know the code to the half-tonne reinforced door that seals its entrance, where cameras keep watch 24 hours a day.

But we were given a rare chance to step through this gateway into prehistory and into the depths of the Grotte Chauvet in southern France — home to the earliest known figurative drawings and now a World Heritage site.

For tens of thousands of years, time stopped in the cave nestled deep in a limestone cliff that hangs over the lush, meandering Ardeche River, until it was discovered in 1994 by a group of cave experts.

Incredible prehistoric paintings can be seen on the rock walls.

To reach the site, which is closed to the public, the lucky few allowed access must hike up a path that our Cro-Magnon ancestors once used, not far from a natural stone bridge that straddles an abandoned part of the river.

Some 36,000 years ago — the age of the cave paintings — tall Scots pines lorded over the cliff in a climate equivalent to that of present-day southern Norway.

After arriving at the entrance in sweltering heat, descending into the Palaeolithic den brings a sharp drop in temperature and almost 100 per cent humidity.

Curators take a rare look at the cave paintings.

Marie Bardisa, the curator of the site, types in the code to the fortified door and it slowly swings open.

Visitors must put on white overalls and special shoes to avoid polluting the environment, as well as a helmet and harness.

“The idea is to keep the cave in the same state of containment as when it was discovered,” Bardisa says.

“We watch over the atmospheric balance, we monitor the potential proliferation of algae, mushrooms or bacteria.”

Horses etched with charcoal into the cave walls.

Miraculously preserved

Now begins the travel through time. After crawling through a narrow tunnel, visitors reach man-made stairs. At the bottom, the silent, cool cave opens up.

Nearly everything has been left as it was when Jean-Marie Chauvet, Christian Hillaire and Eliette Brunel stumbled across the grotto on December 18, 1994.

Paintings of hands made by blowing red ochre pigment.

Crystals on huge limestone formations sparkle in the lamp light. Bones coated with clay and calcite litter the cave, proving that bears lived here before and after humans passed through. The skull of an Alpine ibex, a species of wild goat, smiles through immaculate teeth.

Visitors are not allowed to walk freely through the site but must stick to a tiny walkway that makes movement difficult.

Animal paintings found on the cave walls.

Paintings of hands — made using a technique of blowing red ochre pigment onto the wall around the hand — appear out of the dark as a guide shines a powerful lamp onto the wall.

Further away, an image of a red bear with a spotty face stands over the only known drawing of a panther among all cave paintings from the Palaeolithic era.

“Chauvet alone houses 75 per cent of big cats and 60 per cent of rhinoceroses” known to have been drawn during the period, says Charles Chauveau, the site’s deputy curator.

Royal Remains Burial Site to Be Entered on Russia’s Cultural Heritage List

“Royal Remains Burial Site to Be Entered on Russia’s Cultural Heritage List “

by “Russia Behind the Times“

A resolution passed on Tuesday by the Sverdlovsk regional government, enters the place outside Yekaterinburg, where the remains of the family of Russia’s last tsar Nicholas II were found, on the national cultural heritage list, the regional government’s press service reported.

“The resolution enters the place on Staraya Koptyakovskaya Road, where the royal remains were found, on the national register of cultural heritage sites, where it will be defined and saved for future generations,” the press service said in a statement. Spokesperson for the regional property ministry Galina Utkina told Interfax that a letter requesting that this site be entered on the national register of state protected cultural monuments, will be sent to the Culture Ministry. After the site is entered on the register, all actions at the place where the royal remains were found will be banned unless approved by the regional property ministry, she said. “But further research will be allowed, if a plan is negotiated with us, so we will know who is doing what at the site,” Utkina said. The remains of Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, the grand duchesses Tatiana, Olga and Anastasia, and their servants were found on Staraya Koptyakovskaya Road near Yekaterinburg in the late 1970s. In July 1998, the remains were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The remains of Grand Duchess Maria and Crown Prince Alexei were found at the same site in 2007.