Kaikhan Salakhov

Kaikhan Chakhal-Salakhov is an American and Azerbaijani artist, writer, musician, architect, curator and actor whose work explores the hazy boundaries between the material and the spiritual world. Though born in New York in 1993 into a family of Azerbaijani and Russian artists, he moved to Russia with his family in 1993. His mother Aidan Salakhova is the daughter of renowned painter Tahir Salakhov, to whom Kaikhan Salakhov dedicated an exhibition in 2021. For the exhibition, which presents Tahir Salakhov’s life as a science fiction story, Kaikhan Salakhov serves both as a curator and artist, presenting his grandfather’s and mother’s work in juxtaposition to his own. In 2002, he held his first exhibition in a theatrical circle, followed by two exhibitions at ‘No. 5 DEZ’ in 2006 and 2007. He collaborated with ‘No. 5 DEZ’ again in 2012, this time as a curator on a show titled ‘Unsubstantial’. In 2011, after serving in a Buddhist monastery in Singapore, Salakhov entered the Moscow Architectural Institute. In 2014, he moved to Vienna to pursue his studies in architecture at the Vienna Polytechnic University and published ‘New Life’, a science-fiction novel inspired by his time spent in the Buddhist monastery. Currently, Kaikhan is working on a project entitled ‘Astral SpaceX’, through which he explores “the endless expanses of the inner worlds”. The AI robot T.A.H.I.R.A - 108, named after his grandfather, is a part of the artist’s investigation of nonmaterial dimensions. According to Kaikan Chakhal-Salakhov, “A human being, as any other sentient life form, is a citizen of the Cosmos, not just some specific universe, galaxy, solar system, planet, country, village or tribe. It is this which is Cosmic consciousness. It is this which is the essence of being.”