One of the world’s most obscure art museums, or should I say remote, also has the world’s longest name…the State Art Museum of the Republic of Karakalpakstan aka the Nukus Museum of Art. Located in Uzbekistan, a random two-story white tiled building is surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert in every direction. Opened in 1966, the museum houses over 82,000 items, including the second largest collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world. But the most important element of the museum is the work of the controversial Russian painter, archeologist, and collector, Igor Savitsky. Also the museum’s founder, Savitsky first went to Karakalpakstan (say that three times fast) in 1950. Fascinated by the culture and people of the steppe, he stayed on after an archaeological dig, methodically collecting Karakalpak carpets, costumes, jewelry, and other works of art. At the same time, he began collecting the drawings and paintings of artists linked to Central Asia, as well as those of the Russian avant-garde which the Soviet authorities were then banishing and destroying because Stalin had declared all modernist art “decadent” and “bourgeois.” Those caught practicing it were usually sent to the gulag, or executed. But Savitsky was lucky because Uzbekistan was far from the eyes of the KGB. The museum, only accessible to the outside world since 1991, is now a must-see for anyone visiting this region. Oh, and there’s another random thing in the middle of this desert town…an old school amusement park with a ferris wheel. Like literally right next door to the museum.
State Art Museum of the Republic of Karakalpakstan – the Nukus Museum of Art
