Instruments of the Mind ©gerdastudio

Presented by the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent, the exhibition spans five decades and brings early works into dialogue with projects realised for the first time.

The Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent (CCA Tashkent) presents Vyacheslav Akhunov: Instruments of the Mind, a major solo exhibition by pioneering Uzbek conceptual artist Vyacheslav Akhunov, at Palazzo Franchetti as an official collateral project of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Widely regarded as one of Central Asia’s most significant conceptual artists, Akhunov has developed a rigorous practice since the 1970s, working across drawing, text, installation and collage. Instruments of the Mind brings together historical works alongside newly realised installations based on sketches from the 1970s that remained hidden for decades in the artist’s studio drawers – many will be presented publicly for the first time.

Gayane Umerova, Chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, says: “Vyacheslav Akhunov is one of Uzbekistan’s pioneering and most important voices in contemporary art. This exhibition marks the inaugural year for the CCA Tashkent, showcasing its mission to expand the global conversation around Uzbek art and amplify the voices that have shaped its evolution.”

The exhibition takes its title from a deconstructed understanding of the word “mantra,” derived from the Sanskrit manas (mind) and tra (tool), positioning language itself as an instrument of consciousness and transformation. Rather than a retrospective, the exhibition adopts a non-chronological structure shaped by histories of interruption: censorship, bureaucratic delay, and the absence of institutional support that prevented many projects from being fully realised until now.

Vyacheslav Akhunov says: “Much of this work began in the 1970s, in a time when ideas often had to exist quietly, even invisibly. Returning to these works now, alongside more recent ones, I see them as part of a continuous conversation with memory, humour, and spiritual persistence. Instruments of the Mind is not about the past—it is about how thought survives.”

The works first realised for this exhibition based on archival sketches include Triumphal Arch (1979/2026), a ceremonial arch constructed from metal scissors that critiques grand ribbon-cutting spectacles, a state ritual celebrating the completion of new infrastructure projects; What Am I Doing Here? (1979/2026), a neon text installation transforming personal doubt into political inquiry; and House of Eternity/Sarcophagus (1986/2026), a tomb-like structure examining archaeology, erasure, and cultural memory.

At the heart of the exhibition is Akhunov’s long-standing investigation of slogans as secular “mantras.” Beginning in 1974, he developed repetitive textual interventions on found materials – sewing patterns, newspapers, magazines, and books – using writing as both resistance and critical inquiry. Through works such as Modelling (1974–84), Crack (1988), and Red Line of the Party (1974– 75), Akhunov reverse-engineers language to expose the absurdity and violence embedded in systems of command.

Other central works include Up Down (1975/2026), an impossible staircase that destabilises hierarchies; Work in the Desk (1976/2026), a monumental desk filled with glass jars containing unrealised works and messages in suspension; and Road to Light (1982/2026), a meditative tunnel installation invoking spiritual transformation through the Sufi concept of inner light.

Throughout the exhibition, Akhunov’s recurring symbols of the desert, the suitcase, and the nightingale (bolbol) trace ideas of migration, displacement, archaeology, and spiritual persistence. In Bolbol (Bird in Jar) (1977), forty-one drawings of nightingales enclosed in jars evoke fragility, entrapment, and transcendence, inspired by the poetry of the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi Shirazi.

Instruments of the Mind, official collateral project at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned and co-curated by Gayane Umerova, Chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, 9 May – 22 November 2026
Location: Palazzo Franchetti, Venice