Tightrope by Taus Makhacheva (2015)
58 min

A tightrope walker crosses the abyss of a canyon in the highlands of the Cauca­sian mountains carrying artworks of Dagestani artists instead of a balancing pole. The walker, Rasul Abakarov, a fifth-generation descendant of a Dagestani dynasty of tightrope walkers, brings twentieth-century paintings and works on paper from one side of the mountain to the other, into a structure reminiscent of a museum storage. In staging this risky operation, Makhacheva underlines with this specific collection of objects the arbitrary historical narratives created by and championed in art institutions. Makhacheva evokes the fragile balance of post-soviet subjectivity rein­venting itself and the search for an equilibrium between the traditional past and local, national and contemporary culture.