Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent (CCA Tashkent) presents ‘Vyacheslav Akhunov: Instruments of the Mind’ in Palazzo Franchetti, Venice

As part of the 61st Biennale di Venezia, the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent presents Instruments of the Mind, a solo exhibition by Vyacheslav Akhunov at Palazzo Franchetti, presented as a collateral project of the Biennale and on view from May 9th to November 22nd, 2026. Spanning over five decades of the artist’s practice, the exhibition brings together historical works alongside installations realised for the first time from archival sketches concealed since the 1970s.

Commissioned and co-curated by Gayane Umerova, Chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), alongside Dr Sara Raza, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of the CCA Tashkent,

Language, memory, and the survival of thought

Rejecting the structure of a conventional retrospective, Instruments of the Mind moves through censorship, delay, and unrealised ideas. Borrowing its title from the Sanskrit roots of the word “mantra”—manas (“mind”) and tra (“tool”)—the exhibition treats language as both political weapon and psychological refuge.

Across drawings, collages, installations, and text-based works, Akhunov examines the pressure of slogans, bureaucracy, and repetition on collective consciousness. Fragmented phrases appear embedded within newspapers, sewing patterns, books, and found materials.

“Much of this work began in the 1970s, in a time when ideas often had to exist quietly, even invisibly,” Akhunov explains. “Instruments of the Mind is not about the past — it is about how thought survives.”

Archival sketches reappear as monumental works

Several projects first conceived decades ago finally take physical form in Venice. Triumphal Arch (1979/2026), built from metal scissors, satirises the spectacle of official ceremonies, while What Am I Doing Here? (1979/2026) channels existential uncertainty through stark neon text.

Elsewhere, House of Eternity/Sarcophagus (1986/2026) reflects on erasure and cultural memory, and Up Down (1975/2026) presents an impossible staircase leading nowhere. At the exhibition’s centre stands Work in the Desk (1976/2026), a monumental desk filled with suspended notes and unrealised projects preserved inside glass jars — a haunting emblem of decades shaped by institutional silence.

CCA Tashkent expands the global dialogue around Uzbek art

The exhibition also signals the growing visibility of contemporary Uzbek art internationally. Spearheaded by Gayane Umerova, the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent is Uzbekistan’s first permanent institution dedicated to contemporary art, research, and public engagement.

Recurring motifs—birds, deserts, tunnels, suitcases, and fractured text—trace themes of migration, fragility, and endurance throughout the exhibition. In Bolbol (Bird in Jar) (1977), forty-one drawings of trapped nightingales evoke spiritual resilience and confinement, inspired by the poetry of Saadi Shirazi.

Long recognised as a pioneering voice in Central Asian conceptual art, Akhunov brings decades of philosophical resistance and visual experimentation into sharp international focus at Palazzo Franchetti.