On February 17, “Bureaucratics” opened in Astana, Kazachstan, in the Contemporary Art Center Kulanshi. The exhibition was organized by the Dutch embassy. The opening attracted an impressive number of visitors, the big majority of them young people. For my presentation, the next morning – with an outside temperature of minus 27 degrees Celsius – the gallery had put up some 40 seats in a small meeting room. By the time I started, 110 attendants had shown up. I had the impression that the the idea behind the series – the slightly ironic perspective on state authorities and institutes – was not lost on these Kazakh visitors.
The exhibition in Astana ends on March 24, 2011. There are plans to then move it to Almati and show it there.
More information:
Kazakhstan Pravda
Kazakhstan News
RTV Kazakhstan television
- Jan Banning
May 4th 1954, Almelo
Dutch photographer and artist. Banning was born in the Netherlands from Dutch-East-Indies parents. He studied social and economic history at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and has been working as a photographer since 1981. A central theme of Banning's practice is state power, having produced series about the long-term consequences of war and the world of government bureaucracy.