"The Sculptures Of Emin Guliyev"

Trying to pin down Emin Guliyev is, as far as can be discerned, a mistake. To say this is not to criticize Guliyev, as if to reduce his sculptures to a flighty, wavering variability. This is wrongheaded anyway, for his art has a definite style. This style, however, is not something easily recognizable, but rather follow along the lines of a family resemblance. A family might have a grabbag of features - a nose that three members share, eyes that four do, ears for a few - such that any two members together reveals little. However, when an array is beheld, certain themes become apparent.

Guliyev's sculptures exhibit this same familial style. Place the Dalian "Improvisation" next to "Boy", which resembles an extra from a Brothers Quay short, and some connections could begin to be made, though it is perhaps a stretch. But examining them en masse nets more than weak comparisons. The gaunt weirdness of "Dancing Girl" or the inherent dread of "Horse" all together show Guliyev's predilection for the slightly-off, the Freudian uncanny: that which is familiar, but just off enough to become completely unfamiliar and even terrifying for being so close to that which we call home.

-Andrew Beckerman