Babi Badalov (born 18 June 1959) is an

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

. Since 2011 he lives and works in

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Life and work

Babi Badalov was born as Babakhan Badalov in Lerik, a small town near the Iranian border in the Talysh region of Azerbaijan, to an

Azeri Azeri or Azeri Turk may refer to: * Azeri people, an ethnic group also known as Azerbaijanis * Citizens of Azerbaijan * Azeri language, the modern-day Turkic language * Old Azeri, an extinct Iranian language * Azeri Turk (journal), Academic jour ...

father and a

Talysh Talysh may refer to: *Talysh people, an ethnic group of Iran and Azerbaijan **Talysh language, the West Iranian language of these people ** Talysh, a historical region on the southwestern coast of the Caspian Sea, inhabited by the Talysh people *T ...

mother. After serving two years in the Soviet Army, he moved to

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

(now Saint Petersburg) in 1980, where he quickly became a leading underground artist and a member of the unofficial artists group the (TEII). Badalov participated in numerous art shows with the group in

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and abroad. In the late 1980s, he met artists Vadim Ovchinnikov and Timur Novikov, members of the New Artists Group, and became involved in various of their projects and art campaigns. Badalov always found different ways of expressing his ideas through

art objects A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

paintings Painting is a visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or " support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush. Other implements, ...

, installations and live

performances A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

. He also tested himself on the movie set of

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

Russian film director Evgeniy Kondratiev. In addition to his visual explorations, Badalov experiments with words and writes obscure poetry, mixing the languages and mentalities of different cultures. Even though

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

is not his first language, he won the poetry contest. In 1990, Badalov mysteriously disappeared from the

art scene and became a legendary figure, and an inspiration and a role model for younger generations of Russian artists. Today, Badalov continues to exhibit around the world and develop his new ideas. His latest concept was a series of

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art objects called ''Dolls for Adults'', where he isolated the

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of nature inside his own clothes. He is also working on a number of visual projects dedicated to

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

explorations, questioning how a person can become the victim of a

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

barrier, trying to untangle the confusion of the

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mix. In 2007, world-renowned

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-based

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and curator Victor Misiano invited Badalov to take part in a number of exhibitions, where he displayed his audiovisual projects. In 2010, he took part in '' Manifesta 8'' in Cartagena, Region of Murcia, Spain, ''The Watchmen, the Liars, the Dreamers'' at ,

and ''Lonely at the Top (LATT): Europe at Large #5'' (2010), with

Vyacheslav Akhunov Vyacheslav Akhunov (; ; born 1948), is a Kyrgyz-born Uzbek visual artist, and author. He is known for performance art, video art, and painting. Akhunov lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Biography Vyacheslav Akhunov was born in 1948 in Osh, Kirgh ...

and Azat Sargsyan at

M HKA The Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (, commonly abbreviated as ''M HKA'', previously ''MuHKA'') is the contemporary art museum of the city of Antwerp, Belgium. Its current director is Bart de Baere. Overview The museum holds a permanent co ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

. In 2011, Badalov was granted asylum in France due to threats of an

honor killing An honor killing (American English), ''honour killing'' (Commonwealth English), or ''shame killing'' is a type of murder in which a person, usually a woman or girl, is killed by or at the behest of male members of their family or their male ...

in Azerbaijan because of his homosexuality. In 2019, his work was shown in the group exhibition ''Hotel Europa: Their Past, Your Present, Our Future'' at Open Space of Experimental Art, Tbilisi, and in the two solo exhibitions ''Soul Mobilisation'' at La Verrière - Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, Brussels and ''Het is of de stenen spreken (silence is a commons)'' at Casco Art Institute, Utrecht. Babi Badalov violently plagiarised artworks of the British artist and philosopher Zeigam Azizov for many years, supported by the Jerome Poggi gallery. Badalov and Azizov met first in Leningrad in the mid-1980s and then formed a group and had an exhibition. Azizov wrote to all galleries where Badalov was shown, but only the Gandy gallery responded positively to his complaint.

Publications

* 1990: Jule Reuter, ''GegenKunst in Leningrad'', München, * 1993: Jean-Pierre Brossard; Boris Smelov; Manoir de la ville de Martigny.; et al., ''Saint-Petersbourg Alter'', * 2011: Bart De Baere, ''Europe at large: art from the former USSR, '' * 2012: Babi Badalov, ''Nuage'', * 2013: The Collection as a Character, The M HKA Collection, * 2014
Catalog ''Tranzit Exhibition'', Jan 22-Apr 13, New Museum

References

External links

* *
Babi Badalov's Visual Poetry
*
В Санкт-Петербурге прошла выставка азербайджанского художника-концептуалиста Баби Бадалова

Braziers Workshop
*

Web page of New Museum exhibition
*

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Badalov, Babi 1959 births Living people Azerbaijani people of Talysh descent Azerbaijani poets Gay painters Gay poets 20th-century Azerbaijani painters 21st-century Azerbaijani painters Azerbaijani emigrants to France Artists from Saint Petersburg 21st-century LGBTQ people Azerbaijani LGBTQ people 21st-century male artists 21st-century Azerbaijani artists Talysh people