Almagul Menlibayeva
I Understand Everything
Almaty Museum of Arts

The Almaty Museum of Arts, Central Asia’s first major private contemporary art museum, opened in September with an Almagul Menlibayeva retrospective. Titled “I Understand Everything” and curated by Gridthiya Gaweewong, the show offered a sweeping survey of three decades of artistic evolution. After leaving Kazakhstan in the early 2000s, Menlibayeva built her reputation through exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, resulting in her work circulating more widely in global contexts than within Kazakhstan itself.

Menlibayeva’s journey from the underground art collective Green Triangle in late Soviet Almaty to international recognition parallels Kazakhstan’s own complex navigation of post-socialist identity. The exhibition’s chronological structure revealed this trajectory, beginning with her early textile works and grattage paintings that emerged from material scarcity and ideological constraint. Her choice of textiles over painting or sculpture was strategic—a way to circumvent Socialist Realism’s rigid demands while engaging with traditional Kazakh applied arts suppressed under Soviet rule.