Uzbekistan: l'Avanguardia nel deserto

The exhibition "Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert" brings to the Italian and international public an important albeit lesser-known page of early 20th-century art history. The exhibition highlights the connection between Russian Avant-Garde and Central Asian art with over 100 works from the Tashkent Museum and the Nukus Museum (the "Louvre of the Desert") and is curated by Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri.

The subtitle, "Form and Symbol," hints at the mutual influences connecting the culture of Central Asia and the Russian historical Avant-Garde. This extraordinary selection, never previously displayed outside Uzbekistan, includes four works by Wassily Kandinsky (two oil paintings and two drawings on paper), works by Lentulov, Maškov, Popova, Rodčenko, Rozanova and by a selection of Avant-garde Orientalists. This exhibition gathers the outcome of a profound cultural and artistic dialogue between centuries-old traditions of glittering silks and architectural decorations with an innovative pictorial code that was unprecedented in the Islamic East.