Haptic Vision and Analytical Biases in the Work of Kazakhstani artist Lidiya Blinova

Finger Ornament (1995) is a series of black and white photographs by Kazakhstani artist Lidiya Blinova (1948 – 1996). Each picture depicts a figure formed by the twisted and turned palms of the artist. The photographs are assembled into an intimate and fragile ornamental chain – every unit of it embodies the dissolution of the previous sign. The artwork’s title alludes to a non-figurative language of traditional Kazakh felt carpets, which were domestically produced by women.

In the following text, I will discuss how the artwork of the late artist elucidates the tradition of haptic vision in the region and sheds light on the formal characteristics of pre-Soviet creative practices. The analysis of the aesthetic potential of vernacular art was previously obscured by the Soviet epistemic framework, which categorized it as folk art and craft.

Blinova was the wife of one of the most prominent contemporary artists in post-Soviet Kazakhstan Rustam Khalfin (1949 – 2008). Unlike Blinova, Khalfin left a profound artistic heritage. I will examine how Finger Ornament resonates with Khalfin’s concept of pulota (from Russian pustota – emptiness, and polnota – fullness) that sprang from the eye looking through the semi-closed fist. Pulota conceptualizes and represents the intermediary stage created by the collapse of visual and haptic modes of perception. While Khalfin emphasized his affinity with the Russian avant-garde movement, Finger Ornament grounds the discoveries of haptic vision in vernacular art encompassing the analytical divide between imported fine art and local folk art and craft.