EXHIBITION
AYATGALI TULEUBEK: YOU WILL MEET A BIRD WITH STRANGE FEET

Opening: Friday 6 November 2020
Exhibition: 7 November – 20 December 2020.
Artist talk: watch the online talk with writer and curator Mike Sperlinger and Ayatgali Tuleubek here.

The UKS gallery is open as usual, closely following the city council of Oslo’s health and safety regulations regarding the spread of Covid-19. Hand sanitiser and face masks are available at the gallery.

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Tuleubek’s new film You Will Meet a Bird with Strange Feet centers on the Soviet TV-healer Allan Chumak, whose nationally broadcast healing sessions supposedly revived the dark locks of the Kazakhstani artist’s gray-haired neighbor. Intertwining the powers of technology and mythology, personal recollection and the political ambience of perestroika, the work reenacts the choreography of the healer’s Reiki-like waving hand movements, performed by dancer Mina Weider and instructed by artist and designer Ida Falck Øien.

The contemporary protagonists stage and debate the earnest belief in screen-based curative connectivity, and remote therapy’s power to restore the body’s internal harmony. Slowly working through questions spanning from the healing of a dissolving superpower’s wounds to personal homeopathy, the actors relate to the frail belief systems and actions taken in times of online communication, financial capitalism, and pandemic contamination.

Please note that the spoken language in You Will Meet a Bird with Strange Feet is in Norwegian. There are no (English) subtitles.

The screening lasts for 67 mins

BIOGRAPHY:
Ayatgali Tuleubek (b. 1985) has recently exhibited at, among other places, Ca’ Foscari, Venice (2019); the Göteborg International Biennial (2019); and Akershus Kunstsenter, Lillestrøm (2018). An alum of the Oslo Academy of Fine Art, Tuleubek co-directs the artist-run venue Podium in Oslo.

PRESS

— Review in Kunstkritikk (online journal)
Leget av skjermen, Kunstkritikk, 23.11.2020