December 3-5 2007 - NEW About

"Aluminium" Realities of Dreams
festival of contemporary art

3 days and nights in Baku Zeigam Azizov The trip to Baku to participate at the 3rd Baku Bienalle was both exciting and daunting at the same time: compare to my many trips to different cities for different events, this time it was also the return to my homeland after 20 years . Having said that, the very pleasant moment is of course witnessing the dramatic changes that occured here: the growing capital of Azerbaijan looks like a huge building site, as well as the city which is hosting the important event of the contemporary art exhibition. In general it is a great event to bring from so many different countries exciting artists for the event, which is perphaps one of the first of this kind. The great effort made by Biennale's curator Leyla Ahund-zade gave impressive results. For me before everything it is a good choice of the location for the exhibition, the historical site which in combination with very contemporay art work provides a very good reading of the title of the exhibition: 'Realitiy of dreams'. It could have been certainly a dream20 years ago to imagine that Baku may host such an event, but today it looks like a normal state of affairs. Perhaps it has a lot do with the function of the Baku, which is constantly changing, shifting and becoming more and more contemporary. Being contemporary is not however to cut-off with the past, but quite contrary the openness for everything new, with the combination of already exisiting culture. Baku has very beatuful past and in combination with the new culture it has a chance to become even more beautuful and significant city. The 3rd Baku Biennale somehow symbolised this moment, demonstrating the possibilities for becoming. The identity of every great city is always defined not only by what it is, but also what it may become. This is also true for Baku, part and parcel of which is contemporary art. London 12/12/2007
Carrie Schneider	Natalia Mali

Rashid Ahundzadeh	Ilya Brouk

Max Afanasyev	Paul Zografakis

Izabelle Krieg	Faiq Ahmed