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Posted Saturday, October 27, 2007
View All Blog Posts submitted by CatherineYen

To understand such a striking phenomenon as the art of a Buryat sculptor Dashi Namdakov, who entered the art world to instant fame and utter success after his first solo show in Siberian city of Irkutsk in 2000 and subsequently in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities in Germany, USA, Mongolia and Switzerland, etc., one is to take into account serveral, at least two, aspects.

 

Dashi is a very talented contemporary artist who has been trained in the best traditions of the classical Russian sculpture school, he creates unique artpieces permeated with the spirit of Busshist, Lamaist images and topics , also absorbed with mythological notions of shamanism, of Siberian Turkic people, of the Buryat heroic epos, fairy tales and the ancient art of China and Japan..  This is a phenomenon of the present-day culture which sensitively and objectively reacts to the recently emerged interest toward the East, other spiritual world, mysterious to the western perception, thrilling and captivating. From the point of view the public recognition of Dashi's art is the evidence of this enormous interest.

 

It is exciting yet stirring to meet the enigmatic and fantastical world of Dashi Namdakov.  What do these sturdy and sure-footed creatures hide?Secret power or mysterios threat? When studying them closely you catch yourself at admiring the sculptures, their thought-out design, clear silhouette, organic decorativeness, exquisite jewelry workup of the surface, the author's perfect sense of the material and subtle irony.

 

The images from the dreams that come, the sculptor says, " when consciousness is in the borderline state between the real world and the world inhabited by illusions and spirits", the play of imagination and mind, the evident theatricality, thought out details and scrupulously worked out images of the characters, successful pursuit of professional jewelry business which is felt in his sculpture, the  plastic school and perfect craftsmanship acquired early in childhood-- these are --all together with genuine devotion to the Eastern culture and keeping up with contemporaneity- the components of the outstanding and original art of Dash Namdakov.

 

                                                                          excerpt from "Art of Dashi Namdadov" by Ludmila V. Martz

                                                                          Head of Dept of Sculpture of the XX Century,

                                                                          The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow