Galim Madanov was born on May 29, 1958, in the city of Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR. He lives and works in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He graduated from the Almaty Art College named after N.V. Gogol in 1977, then in 1985 graduated from the art department of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. He received a master’s degree in Cultural Studies from the Faculty of Philosophy and Political Science at Kazakh State Al-Farabi University in 2004. Galim Madanov worked from 1977 to 1990 in the development of animated films and as a costume designer for iconic projects at Kazakhfilm Studio. His exhibition activity as an artist began in 1985. Galim Madanov is part of the first generation of artists in Kazakhstan who developed a new style of art in the late ’80s and early ’90s — at a time when contemporary art was neither taught in schools nor supported by institutions. In his early paintings, he worked with unexpected materials, using earth, sand, bronze, and cellophane to underscore and question metaphysical constants in traditional and contemporary culture. In doing so, he went beyond the “frame of the picture” and became one of the first artists in Kazakhstan to make an art installation. Galim Madanov’s transition to volume and installation occurred at the intersection of painting and cinema, where the structure of the work comes to the foreground as a means of conveying myths and symbols. Having achieved expressive signification through new forms and meanings, he departed from the ideological model and the tradition of the Soviet art school. All of this was synthesized into a dynamic practice employing a range of methods and techniques — drawing, painting, collage, video, photography, and installation.
Zauresh Terekbay was born in 1964 in the city of Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR. She lives and works in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She studied at the Alma-Ata Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, in the Faculty of French Language, from 1982 to 1989. In subsequent years, she completed her studies in screenwriting and arts management. She worked in film production at Kazakhfilm Studio beginning in 1985, and since 1995 has coordinated cultural activities and organized more than 20 exhibitions and art projects as a curator and arts manager.
Since 1995, Galim Madanov has worked in collaboration with Zauresh Terekbay. Together they create multi-layered works rooted in an investigation of post-Soviet reality and contemporary culture, with society’s navigation of new political models and increasingly sophisticated technologies as a central subject. Their creative process is grounded in a never-ending conversation. While both artists research and discuss together the topics and materials they wish to engage with, their production draws on the distinct abilities and skills each possesses. One may “start” a work, the other will “complete” it — and that process may repeat many times before the work is finished. Their collaboration is one in which each artist enacts and supplements the other in a permanent dialogue, both visual and spoken.
Between 1995 and 2018, the artists participated in more than a hundred group exhibitions across Central Asia, Europe, and the United States. Among numerous exhibitions in Kazakhstan and abroad, recent notable presentations include Doublethink: Double Vision (Pera Museum, Istanbul, 2017), Suns and Neons above Kazakhstan (Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, 2017), La vie est une légende (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Strasbourg, 2014), the Central Asian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), Migrasophia (Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, 2011), Between Heaven and Earth: Contemporary Art from the Centre of Asia (Calvert 22 Foundation, London, 2011), and Second Dialogue at the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (Moscow, 2009).