Founded in 1966, the Savitsky Collection is located in Nukus, Uzbekistan and
holds over 90,000 items of art (paintings, graphics, sculptures, folk and
applied art and archaeology). It holds the world's second largest Russian
Avant-Garde art collection after the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Igor Savitsky, a Russian born in Ukraine, moved to Central Asia in the
1940s to work as an artist on the Khorezm archaeological expedition. He stayed,
collecting Folk and Applied Art of Karakalpakstan, and moved into other areas of
collecting, notably Russian and Uzbek Avant-Garde of the 1920s.
Dubbed
"one of the 29 places to blow your mind" by the New York Times, and feted by
dozens of newspapers in Asia, Europe, and North American, the Savitsky
Collection is one of most impressive and moving stories of any museum: www.savitskycollection.org
The presentation will discuss the museum's fascinating history, some of
its most renowned pieces/artists as well as an overview of the current
challenges.
Richard Dion is a Board Member of the Friends of Nukus
Museum, a Dutch-based nongovernment organization which assists the Savitsky
Collection with strategy, international outreach, and capacity building.
Mr. Dion previously worked for Royal Dutch/Shell overseeing portfolios
related to human rights, revenue transparency and in another role in business
development for Central Asia. In the late 1990s, he was at at UNDP where he was
seconded to the Government of Kazakhstan for the Semipalatinsk Relief and
Rehabilitation Program. He is a UCLA graduate and holds two Master's Degrees in
Russian Studies (University of London) and Urban Management and Governance
(Erasmus University Rotterdam). Based in Germany, he is now developing the
world's first Bridge Museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
The event will take
place at SRH on Saturday May 11, at 5-7pm.
Silk Road House, 1944
University Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 (between Milvia & Martin Luther King;
enter by side door in passageway under black Zabu Zabu awning); e-mail: silkroadhouse@yahoo.com; website: www.silkroadhouse.org; tel.:
510-981-0700.
Silk Road House events are sponsored by the Silkroad
Foundation.
