Split Together, Merged Apart

An exhibition on the relationships between archaeology and modernism and on the ways in which contemporary art can comprehend the mechanisms of historical imagination.

It may seem, at first sight, that the exhibition Split Together, Merged Apart is intended solely to inform today’s public of the history, heroes and results of a fascinating Soviet scientific project: the Khorezm Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition. However, as the exhibition title suggests, the intention is somewhat different—it is to draw attention to the paradoxical, inconspicuous, but close and deep connections between the practices of archaeology, on the one hand, and modernism, on the other.

Illustration: Sofya Nakonechnaya. Images courtesy of the Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Scientific Archive, State Museum of Oriental Art, Shchusev Museum of Architecture, Shuyi Cao, Ali Cherri

Modernism, as a general trend of twentieth-century culture, envisioned the future as a new and better stage in the development of human society. In its Soviet version, modernism was not just about historical progress. It emphasised the overcoming of the past and ways in which the present becomes an inverted reflection of the past. Tomorrow could only be bathed in light thanks to the shadows cast by earlier times.

This special relationship between the future and the past was a source of constant tension in Soviet culture. The modernist impulse in the USSR gave rise to projects of unprecedented scale that were intended to transform the natural world and human life, from transcontinental transportation routes to the construction of canals and power plants, the building of new cities, and the displacement of thousands or even millions of people. These projects were often preceded and spearheaded by what the Russian language describes using a loan word from English, the word “ekspeditsii” (“expeditions”): large groups of specialists travelled to often remote parts of the USSR’s vast space to carry out geographical, geological and other studies of a particular location. On the one hand, therefore, such expeditions were emblematic of the regimented and ideologically driven Soviet experiment. On the other hand, paradoxically, by allowing people of great talent to use their initiative, often far from centres of Soviet officialdom, they offered scope for individuality and escapism, for staying true to the past, tradition, and oneself in niches where ideological control did not penetrate.

Starting in 1937 on the territories of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan under the leadership of Academician Sergei Pavlovich Tolstov, the Khorezm Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition continued for over half a century, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its scale and duration were unmatched in the history of Soviet archaeology. The works were unfolding simultaneously and shoulder-to-shoulder with grandiose Soviet hydro-engineering projects: the scientists who excavated the ancient irrigation culture of the region were followed by engineers and canal builders with the mission of turning the deserts of Central Asia into verdant agricultural land and new settlements. The latter project was a grandiose failure. As the Soviet archaeologists unearthed ancient Khorezm, Soviet engineers, by their unbridled irrigation projects, ultimately drained the Amu Darya River and the Aral Sea—the mainstays of life in the region—and created a desert.

The dramaturgy of the exhibition is based on a mirroring effect between a reconstructed past and a planned tomorrow—the archaeologist who traces lines in the sand where cities once stood, the architect who plans future cities in the desert, and, finally, human efforts to preserve the past and to preserve life-giving water.

The metaphor of an archaeological expedition determines the very form of the exhibition, which is put together according to the logic of an archaeologist’s or restorer’s work. Fragmentariness and residuality are the properties of archaeological material: the archaeologist completes, speculates, reassembles, and reinvents from pieces, while remaining open to the possibility of different configurations and interpretations.

Like archaeology itself, Split Together, Merged Apart connects fragments from different levels, contemporary events and events from the distant past, bringing together archaeological finds from the collections of the Museum of Oriental Art, the Hermitage and the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as materials and documents from the Khorezm Expedition archive, and exhibits from other Russian and foreign collections. The artworks (some existing, some commissioned for the project) work like the glue used in kintsugi, a Japanese technique of ceramic restoration—the joins are no less important than the surviving fragments, which are joined. They emphasise gaps and fill lacunae. How the gaps are filled and the way in which our contemporary fantasies are connected with the silent fragments of the past is no less important for the exhibition than its historical subject matter.

Authors

Art and Research

Sergei Azimov — Paweł Althamer — Alexey Artamonov — Igor Blidarev — Shuyi Cao — Ali Cherri — Lê Giang — Vera Inber — Nastya Indrikova and Ilyas Hajji — Sergei Kacheryats — Nikolai Karakhan — Magomed Kazhlaev — Rustam Khalfin — Boriy Khodjaev — Yuri Knorozov — Willem de Kooning — Irina Korina — Nigmat Kuzybaev — Harold Lawrence — Tigran Mkrtychev — Eldar Muratov — Mayana Nasybullova — Max Penson — Igor Persidsky — Vladimir Piliavsky — Sergei Piyanzin — Sigmar Polke — Anna Pronina — Ilya Sokolov — Alexandra Sukhareva — Ural Tansykbaev — Boris Zasypkin — Militsa Zemskaya

Documents

Boris Andrianov — Aleksandra Antonova — Georgy Argiropoulos — Alfred Ashkinezer — Abdullah Babahanov — Samuil Bubrik — Aida Epikhova — Zinovy Feldman — Marianna Itina — Nikolai Karmazinsky — Roman Karmen — Malik Kayumov — Aleksandra Kes — A. Klimov — I. Kolesnikov — Natalia Kovaleva — Aleksandr Krylov — O. Kuzmin — Lev Melehi — G. Mushkambarov — Anna Opochinskaia — Mark Orlov — Georgy Pavlidi — Vadim Pentman — Anatoly Pogorely — Yakov Poselskiy — Dan Psyol — Yuri Rapoport — S. Rukavishnikov — Igor Savitsky — Irina Setkina — V. Sobolevsky — Nikolai Tolstov — K. Tomashevsky — Arif Tursunov — Nina Vakturskaia — Sergei Vasilkovsky — Galina Veresotskaia — Dziga Vertov — Emilia Vinogradova — N. Yusov — Tatiana Zhdanko

Companion reader

Aleksandra Antonova — Irina Arzhantseva — Sergei Bolelov — Anna Daumann — Tigran Mkrtychev

Architecture
sashakim.studio: Sasha Kim, Ira Ten

Curators
Yaroslav Aleshin, Katerina Chuchalina

Research assistant
Sergei Kozlovsky

Producers
Varvara Arkhipova, Maria Kalinina, Veronica Luchnikova, Ksenia Makshantseva

Lighting 
Ksenia Kosaya

Design development
SLOVO

Art logistics and registration
Angelina Korovina, Daria Krivtsova, Daria Maksimova

Technical team
Andrey Belov, Aleksandr Dolmatov, Artem Kanifatov, Maksim Lapshin, Pavel Luzhin, Mikhail Sarkisyants

Accessibility and inclusion team
Aleksandra Kharchenko, Vlad Kolesnikov, Victoria Kuzmina, Varya Merenkova, Vera Zamyslova

Graphic design
Mikhail Filatov, Maria Kosareva

Editors
Daniil Dugaev, Olga Grinkrug

Media specialist
Ira Popovich

English texts
Thomas Campbell, Ben Hooson

Exhibition partner
Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences

The exhibition is organised in collaboration with
Central State Archive of Literature and Arts of Saint Petersburg
Gosfilmofond of Russia
Grabar Art Conservation Centre
Ivanovo Regional Art Museum
Kolomenskoye-Izmailovo State Architectural and Landscape Museum
Mardjani Foundation
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
National Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Russian State Film and Photo Archive
Rustam Khalfin Look Gallery
Schusev Museum of Architecture
Scientific Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts
State Hermitage Museum
State Historical Museum
State Museum of Oriental Art
State Pushkin Museum
State Tretyakov Gallery
Tomsk Regional Art Museum