Babi Badalov
Babi Badalov (°1959) was born in the Azerbaijan city of Lerik. After completing his studies at the Art Academy, he moves to Leningrad, today's St. Petersburg, where he lives until 1990. He is active in the semi-official art scene of the city and becomes a member of the independent artists group ‘Association of Experimental Visual Art' (TEII). As part of this group, he participates in various art expositions, both in Russia and other countries. Badalov currently lives in Paris.
The work of Badalov balances between visual art and poetry. He effectively presents his work as 'visual poetry', in which he uses painting, installations and performance, just as much as experimental and improvised literary formats. The mixture of different languages and orthographic systems, and the combination of words and pictures, is characteristic for his work in all these genres.
Badalov focuses on an exploration of the limits of language, as well as the limitations that it imposes on its users. People that lead nomadic lives – artists, but also economic migrants and political refugees – will experience both the battle and the advantages of cultural adaptation, while they can also become a prisoner of the language. Badalov plays with such situations, thereby alluding to broader geopolitical questions.