Heydar Aliyev Center Hosts Official Opening of “Fly to Baku. Art Weekend. Sense the Future NOW” Festival

Baku, The Gulf Observer: The official opening of the “Fly to Baku. Art Weekend. Sense the Future NOW” festival took place at the Heydar Aliyev Center on October 30, bringing together renowned artists, curators and art enthusiasts from across the world.

Leyla Aliyeva, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Founder of the IDEA Public Union, attended the opening ceremony together with Alena Aliyeva. As part of the “Art Weekend” opening, the Heydar Aliyev Center presented several exhibitions.

Addressing the ceremony, Leyla Aliyeva noted that celebrated artists from various countries had joined the event. “And over the next few days, you will discover many paintings, installations, sculptures, and performances. All to show the beauty of nature and also its strength and its rigidity,” she said.

Recalling the origins of the environmental theme at the heart of the festival, she said: “In 2012, we have established a Caucasus ‘Big Five’ that include endangered species of animals, which are the brown bear, grey wolf, the Caucasian leopard, the imperial eagle, and the gazelle. And since then, we have worked together with local departments and international organizations to preserve these endangered species of animals and to reintroduce them into the wild and also to increase their habitat. And it has been quite successful.”

“In order to understand nature and to love it, the best way is to spend more time in the nature. Then you can really connect to it. And also, we want to make sure that everybody remembers that they can make a huge difference by themselves, even with very small actions. So, this is what the Sense the Future NOW festival means to us,” Leyla Aliyeva added.

The ceremony also featured national dances performed by the Azerbaijan State Children’s Philharmonic.

Expressing gratitude to Leyla Aliyeva on behalf of the international art representatives who travelled to Baku for the festival, renowned art curator Simon de Pury recalled their first meeting in London in 2012. “I remember you said there are two things that I’m really very, very interested in. One is, I really want the artists from Azerbaijan to get a wide acknowledgement, to get widely seen around the world and to get a lot of international exposure. And so we discussed and did do an exhibition in 2012, Fly to Baku, which incorporated some of the greatest and most interesting living artists of Azerbaijan,” he said.

He noted that the first exhibition, held in London, was a great success and subsequently travelled to Paris, Moscow and several other cities around the world. De Pury also recalled the 2016 retrospective dedicated to American artist George Condo at the Heydar Aliyev Center, describing the building as the magnum opus of the late architect Zaha Hadid. “In my view, it’s her best work in a brilliant career,” he remarked.

The evening featured an immersive theatrical performance written and directed by Parviz Mammadrzayev, with the visual atmosphere for “Art Weekend” created by Laman Yusifli. Through choreography, music and visual storytelling, the performance unfolded as a poetic journey exploring the fragile relationship between humanity and nature. Following the ceremony, the Azerbaijan State Dance Ensemble performed the traditional dances “Jangi” and “Yalli”, showcasing the country’s ancient dance heritage.

Held for the second consecutive year at the initiative of Leyla Aliyeva, the festival’s exhibition programme brings together diverse artistic approaches, generations and geographies, inviting audiences to reflect on themes including memory, cultural heritage, nature, biodiversity, identity and the future.

The “Big Five of the Caucasus” forms one of the central themes of this year’s “Art Weekend”, exploring the region’s biodiversity and the role of animals in cultural memory, mythology and collective identity.

Among the projects on display is “Legendary Creatures: An Azerbaijani Bestiary”, which links the “Big Five” with mythological creatures from Azerbaijani folklore and highlights the importance of preserving both wildlife and cultural heritage. The exhibition features six works by six artists, spanning carpet art, sculpture, photography, metalwork and mixed media, all presented to the public for the first time.

The contemporary art exhibition “When Nature Speaks. Heirs” features the Caucasian leopard, brown bear, grey wolf, golden eagle and goitered gazelle, examining the relationship between humanity and nature and reflecting on heritage, responsibility and the natural world to be passed on to future generations. It brings together artists working in installation, sculpture, ceramics, textiles and mixed media.

Guests also toured “The Skin of Truth”, an exhibition by Chinese artist Zhang Ji featuring works from his “The Skin of Truth” and “Ultima” series. Blending architectural motifs from different religious and cultural traditions with contemporary painting, and drawing inspiration from landmarks such as the Great Mosque of Córdoba and the Alhambra Palace, Zhang Ji uses a syringe instead of a brush to create raised surfaces reminiscent of bas-relief sculpture. His works have been exhibited in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, China, France, Spain, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and other countries, and are held in collections worldwide.

The Heydar Aliyev Center is also presenting “What If Women Ruled the World?” by renowned American artist Judy Chicago, and “Mirror of Eternity” by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. Since 2022, Judy Chicago’s project has developed a global archive spanning several countries, and visitors in Baku can contribute to its next chapter by answering questions in an interactive recording booth.

Pistoletto’s “Mirror of Eternity” employs artificial intelligence to merge human portraits, generating new faces that have never existed before. Participants upload their portraits, which the system combines with that of another person to create a new image. Each portrait thus exists not as a fixed record of memory, but as an evolving digital entity transformed through successive encounters, exploring the relationship between humanity, memory, technology and the ever-changing nature of life.

The “Fly to Baku. Art Weekend. Sense the Future NOW” festival will run until November 1.