04.07.2026 –
04.10.2026
JETZTZEIT – LAYERS OF THE PRESENT – Gulnur Mukazhanova
With Jetztzeit – Layers of the Present, Gulnur Mukazhanova presents her first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin – the city where she has lived and worked for the past twenty years. For Kunsthaus Dahlem, the artist has developed a site-specific installation that explores how the past continues to shape our present and influence the way we think.
Gulnur Mukazhanova’s oeuvre encompasses textile works, photography and installation-based formats. Emerging from the tension between globalised realities of life and traditional ways of living, her work reflects both personal experiences and broader social and political processes. At its core is the fusion of Central Asian traditions with approaches drawn from conceptual art and abstraction. Questions of identity, migration and cultural transformation recur throughout her practice as central themes.
Opening: 4 July 2026
Doors open at 11 am, welcome address at 3 pm
Curator: Petra Gördüren (Kunsthaus Dahlem)
Jetztzeit and Layering
The exhibition is conceived as a contemporary intervention within the historical setting of Kunsthaus Dahlem. Its title refers to Walter Benjamin’s concept of »Jetztzeit« (now-time), which describes a moment in which the past is not perceived as concluded but continues to exert an influence on the present. History thus appears not as a linear sequence of historical facts, but as a condensation of temporal layers that overlap and open up new spaces of meaning.
The principle of layering also characterises Mukazhanova’s artistic practice, particularly in works created with felt, her material of choice. Deeply rooted in the nomadic craft traditions of Central Asia, felt is removed by the artist from its original cultural context and reinterpreted as a trace of a physical, intuitive working process. Layer by layer, she places delicate wool fibers one upon another, concealing and revealing spaces, condensing and creating fluid transitions. The resulting tactile fields of colour exist in a space between materiality and abstract painting.
The Exhibition at Kunsthaus Dahlem
At Kunsthaus Dahlem, this method of layering encounters a site that itself embodies multiple temporal dimensions. Mukazhanova’s installation responds to this condition with an expansive yet fragile and potentially changeable work composed of textile elements that spread across the floor and walls. The recurring almond-shaped form evokes snake eyes or scales and refers to the figure of the White Snake, which in Kazakhstan symbolically represents ancestors and the enduring presence of the past.
Drawing on orally transmitted mythological narratives that stand in contrast to fixed and codified understandings of history, the installation creates a space of tension in which the present can be experienced as an overlay of memory and collective experience.
Mukazhanova extends this field with a selection of earlier works that offer insight into her personal history and artistic development. Through photographs, masks cast directly from her body, and a video work, her exploration of layers and the transformations of her own identity becomes tangible.
Artist
Gulnur Mukazhanova was born in 1984 in Semipalatinsk and is now considered one of Kazakhstan’s leading contemporary artists. She studied Textile Design at the Academy of Arts in Almaty and at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. Since participating in the Central Asian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, she has exhibited internationally in numerous solo and group shows. Most recently, her work has been presented at CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile) in Hong Kong, the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture in Almaty and last year’s Bukhara Biennial. Concurrent with her exhibition at Kunsthaus Dahlem, she is also participating in this year’s Kyiv Biennial, presented at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.
SUPPORT
Сircle of friends Freundeskreis Kunsthaus Dahlem – Bernhard Heiliger e. V.