ARTEAST
SOCIAL ORGANISATION

32-3, Mira ave., Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 720044
Tel/fax.+ 996(312) 49-45-37
E-mail: mjumali@yandex.ru
Web site: http://arteast.ktnet.kg

Mission of “ArtEast”:

To strengthen the role of contemporary visual arts as the integral constituent of a harmonious development of civil society of Kyrgyzstan and to support artists create artworks that are free of ideological and commercial pressure.

History:

“ArtEast” is non-governmental, non-profit organization established by Kyrgyzstan freelance artists in November, 2002. The principle of the organization based on free membership. The reason of establishing of organization was socio-cultural situation that combines high educational level of the group of artists with their very limited technical and informational resources.

At the same time due to collapse of Soviet system and termination of “social support” of artists and stagnation in art education, we could observe degradation of aesthetical quality of art works of new generation in 90th. “Social realism” has changed by, as art critic Thomas McEveley called, “faux-modernist kitsch”. In this situation it was extremely necessary to expand art education, improve knowledge about contemporary art as part of civil society.

The biggest project of ArtEast became “Building capacity” supported by Hivos Fund and it started for two years in September 2004. The first step of the project was creation a technical basis for implementation of personal and group artistic projects and this basis included such elements as of media art-laboratory; creation of art library and video-library; access to internet; creation of web-site.