The National Museum is hosting an exhibition of one of the brightest Kazakh avant-garde artists Sergei Maslov. Sergei Maslov passed away 15 years ago leaving many paintings, drawings, videos, texts and various unfinished projects. Space and steppe were one of the main themes in his works. Nevzorov's East Kazakhstan regional museum of fine arts organized the exhibition featuring Sergei Maslov’s paintings in various genres and techniques, and some entries in his personal diaries demonstrating the greatness of the artist.

YERZHAN AKATAYEV, VISITOR:

This is the exhibition of a true artist. Maslov used to say that art should be provocative rather than narrative, art is something that changes the future. Maslov defined himself as a vampire and it can be clearly seen on his self-portrait: clever, cruel and freezing look of bluish and shining eyes. But that vampire draws energy from the space and transmits to people.

The exhibition organizers recreated the installation ‘Baikonur-2’ based on Sergei Maslov’s myth that Kazakhs are direct descendants of an alien civilization.

ROZA ABENOVA, HEAD OF CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE, KAZAKHSTAN’S NATIONAL MUSEUM:

He was a mythmaker. One of his myths was that the Kazakhs were the aliens; they came from the planet Sirius. Kazakhs were first people on the Earth. Even a yurt is not just a tent, it's a housing can quickly be transformed into a rocket and fly into space.

According to another myth, Maslov committed a suicide to prolong the life of his idol Whitney Houston. The portrait ‘My Whitney’ depicts the artist’s love to the American singer. The artist had always stirred the people’s minds up with his unusual ideas. The artist’s contemporaries remembered him as a philosopher, a talented painter and respected mentor.

VLADIMIR FILATOV, DIRECTOR, GALLERY ‘TENGRI-UMAI’:

As an individual, he was unique, multifaceted. He could convey the 1990s, very difficult time. Very few artists such as Sergei Maslov could express that time’s harsh reality and contradictions in their works. Such artists were creative and self-sufficient. He was a flamboyant personality, but a very gentle man. Young people were interested in his creativity.

Sergey Maslov belongs to the group of Kazakh artists, whose works are mostly known abroad than at home. His paintings were presented at the 51st Venice Biennale, Sotheby's largest auction in London, "Crossroads" exhibition, at the House of World Cultures in Berlin. The artist left a rich legacy that will be valued as art and a research subject at all times.