Somewhere near Georgia’s border with Russia, 2,500 LED lamps, two robotic arms, a walking refrigerator, 3,000 sq ft of aluminium foil and many, many rolls of duct tape sit in storage.

They were destined for bigger things: namely, pride of place in the Kazakhstan Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, but a last-minute reroute to avoid travel through Russia, combined with sizeable border queues, mean that the “First Radial Cardboard Light Generator of Genius” are not up and running for Venice’s opening week.

Undeterred, the five commissioned artists, who work collectively under the name ORTA, have scoured Venice to make do. Having relieved the city of almost its entire supply of foil, dowelling and brown paper, they have created a playful temporary installation that will stand in until the cargo arrives.

The Pavilion, named the “Centre for the New Genius”, is Kazakhstan’s first at the Biennale. ORTA has spent five years developing the set and a series of “spectacular experiments” designed to plunge visitors into the magical world of Sergey Kalmykov (1891-1967).

Kalmykov, creator of dream-like Expressionist paintings and a 10,000-page manifesto, lived a life of poverty and died in psychiatric care. He is little known outside Kazakhstan, or inside it, for that matter. To this day, no one knows where he is buried. Recently though, his reputation has begun to skyrocket, and his works, many of which were seized by the Politburo on his death, are starting to go on sale for anything up to $15,000.