Astral Nomads: Maslov, Khalfin, Blinova, Dvinyaninov

<p>Shortly before his death in 2002, Kazakh artist Sergey Maslov started to write a novel titled <em>Astral Nomads</em>, from which I derive the name of the project, since its content was dedicated to the lives of a large number of contemporary Central Asian artists. Given that he had no heirs, these same artists and other friends and colleagues became the keepers of his paintings, notebooks, sketchbooks, and self- published magazines, which they are currently storing in their homes. This mode of preservation, however, does not do justice to the significance of Maslov’s legacy, and these materials require cataloguing, organizing, and digitalization to offer insight into Maslov’s own practice and its importance to the artistic scene he helped create.</p> <p>In various ways, the work of the artists figuring prominently in the <em>Astral Nomads</em> project is a way to say “hello” to their colleagues abroad – though it is a greeting that often has a hard time getting through. The projects they made were often dedicated to the memory of other artists, whom they never saw but whose ideas excited them. Those projects were a way of extending and reincarnating in a different part of the world the most challenging artistic ideas of 20th century – and it is only fitting that it should be made possible for their legacy to become a more prominent part of the global artistic conversation by means of a digital resource http://astralnomads.net/ . The digital dimension can become that space where these and other creative “astral nomads” of Maslov’s novel can find a place to communicate with like-minded people around the world.</p>