The appearance of the Look Gallery is not a spontaneous occasion. ‘Look’ means in Russian both ‘an onion’ and ‘a bow’. The idea to create a gallery under this name emerged a long time ago. One of the first performances conducted in Almaty in 1993 by Lidia Blinova and Anne Himmelstrand was based on the polysemantic subject of the onion. They made a painting smelling of the onion and designed a special gadget, ‘stereosniffer’, to sniff at the picture different places. 

Implemented in 1998–1999 “Clay Project” has provided a unique space for the Look Gallery.  

The world ‘Look’ recalls the idea of a variety of senses, from a malicious vegetable causing tears, up to the shape of the ‘onion’ cupola of an orthodox temple, the curvilinear space outlined a yurt’s dome and further up to a bow, the weapon of an ancient nomad. ‘Look’ in English – ‘to look’ – continues the chain of the associations, which are highly individual. The project demands this individual inner space for developing a common space ‘viewer – artist”. 

The word is only a key that opens own associations in everyone who is want to hear.

The unique logo of the gallery was designed by Rustam Khalfin himself and was stored in a box with artifacts, which was subsequently passed to his heir Ruslan Khalfin.