INSTITUTIONAL ART CRITICISM IN 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY IN KAZAKHSTAN

The independence of Kazakhstan and its state sovereignty became important reforming factors in the new social fabric and worldview of the nation, its culture and art, the main component of which is the replacement of former political ideals and the mythologization of its own past. In Kazakhstan, official and unofficial art lives side by side and is displayed in various exhibition venues, which avoids a mindset of opposition and allows for art historians and curators to create divisions by preference. In Kazakhstan, there is a long-overdue need for serious comprehension of, and fixation on, artistic initiatives. Here, we are not regarding ‘fixation’ as the photography and videography of events; we need something different – analysis of the work of individual researchers, painting a picture of the direction of research and the development of the creative side of art criticism institutions in Kazakhstan. This article is an attempt to understand the realities of 21st-century Kazakhstani fine art. It is important to determine the most important institutions and bring the achievements of art criticism in Kazakhstan to the global community, based on the work of individual researchers. Aiming to grasp and examine the main directions and goals of contemporary art critics, we have discovered the individual directions and themes of leading researchers, which serves as a basis for the revealing the characteristic traits of art criticism in Kazakhstan through the prism of individual knowledge and passions.