Dashi Namdakov makes for an unlikely favorite of the Russian elite. The 37-year-old ethnic Mongolian sculptor grew up in an idyllic Siberian hamlet on the Russian-Chinese border. He belongs to the Buryat clan, which is descended from the medieval marauder Genghis Khan. The clan is Buddhist, though some members are shamanists whose ancient faith includes animal worship and divination. Namdakov draws on this eclectic background—and an episode during his childhood, when he was cured of a serious illness by a shaman—to reproduce his own visions in metal, primarily bronze. "Mysterious images haunt me at night," he confides. He has sold two of his works to billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich. President Vladimir Putin owns a couple of Namdakov originals and considers him one of his favorite artists; he even escorted visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to the sculptor's Moscow studio on a recent state visit.
Namdakov's world of celestial creatures, spirits and mythical animals is currently on view at New York's Tibet House and travels to Germany, Switzerland and Austria this summer. Some critics argue that his pieces hark back to shamans, nomads, warriors, goddesses and animals from a bygone age, which the sculptor does not deny. "Maybe these works existed before," he says, acknowledging his influences: the ancient arts of Iran, India, Egypt, Japan, Scythia and Babylon. Still, Namdakov's use of distortion modernizes these classical symbols: by recreating them as asymmetrical, mostly elongated figurines, he brings out a Picassoesque beauty that is anything but traditional.
Vibhuti Patel