Kazakhstan Swings

Art critic Waldemar Januszczak takes a tour of the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and its weird and wonderful modern art scene.

A spirited and suitably bizarre follow up to the controversial Beijing Swings.

Beijing Swings was probably the most shocking art programme ever shown on British television. Its images of a Chinese artist eating a stillborn baby and a man drinking wine with an amputated penis added to it were stomach churning and challenging. The transmission predictably set the Daily Mail and bitter old Tory brigade into outrage overdrive, thereby ensuring it was as popular as it was unsettling.

Although Kazakhstan Swings starts with the memorable image of nine naked women embedded up to their wastes in snow, waving their arms around and keening, it contains nothing as shocking as Beijing Swings (unless you count the excesses of Kazakhstan's local dictator, that is). But what it lacks in outrageous excess it more than makes up for in energy. Januszczak plunges into the remarkably creative local art scene, providing a fascinating glimpse of this unique and troubled country along the way.

P2 About the artists in the film

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