In het kader van de tentoonstelling 'Sentimental Traveller' van Karlo Kacharava kan je een lezing en een panelgesprek bijwonen op zaterdag 30 maart.
Karlo Kacharava Talks is een publiek programma rond Karlo Kacharava's tentoonstelling Sentimental Traveller in S.M.A.K. In dit programma verenigt men verschillende generaties en diaspora's van Georgische en internationale kunstenaars, kunsthistorici, curatoren en denkers. Karlo Kacharava Talks, dat zich voornamelijk in S.M.A.K. afspeelt en eindigt in Tbilisi, hanteert multifocale, multivocale en multidisciplinaire benaderingen met en vanuit Kacharava's oeuvre en gaat zo de dialoog aan met zijn werk.
Op zaterdag 30 maart zal Dr. Sophie Keburia, kunstcriticus, historicus en theoreticus uit Tbilisi, om 11:00 in een themalezing haar onderzoek toelichten dat ze in de loop der jaren heeft gedaan naar de geschriften van Karlo Kacharava over enkele thema's doorheen zijn werk. Ze nodigt ons uit om ons tot deze thema's te verhouden door middel van nieuwe tekstuele perspectieven die zich specifiek richten op de rol van beelden, verhalen, taal en referenties in het werk van Kacharava.
In de context van Sentimental Traveller ontmoeten Anastasia Akhvlediani en Nina Kintsurashvili, twee Georgische kunstenaars van de jongere generatie, evenals kunsthistorici en curatoren Dina Akhmadeeva (Tate Modern, Londen) en Irina Popiashvili (Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Tbilisi) elkaar om hun respectievelijke werk en praktijk te bespreken, en hun veranderende rol in de wereld van vandaag in dialoog met het werk van Karlo Kacharava. Kacharava resoneert voor hen als een belangrijke culturele figuur, kunstenaar, dichter en kunstcriticus die het mogelijk maakt om het visuele materiaal van Georgië in de erfenis op te nemen en te heractualiseren met artistieke en curatoriële gezichtspunten. De paneldiscussie zal zich ontvouwen met verschillende presentaties van kunstwerken van Anastasia Akhvlediani en Nina Kintsurashvili, evenals Dina Akhmadeva's kijk op de bestaande kunstscènes van de voormalige Sovjetlanden, evenals Irina Popiashvili's bijdrage met historische en biografische verhalen rond het leven en werk van Kacharava, in het licht van de hedendaagse samenleving.
Dr. Sophie Keburia, Ph.D. (სოფიო ქებურია) is kunstcriticus, historicus en theoreticus. Ze heeft cursussen en lezingen gegeven aan de Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University en aan verschillende andere onderwijsinstellingen. Ze is auteur van talrijke academische papers en co-auteur van handboeken over kunstopleidingen. Haar werkervaring omvat een verscheidenheid aan onderzoek, wetenschappelijke, redactionele en educatieve activiteiten.
Dina Akhmadeeva is a London-based curator, art historian, and writer. At Tate Modern, she works on exhibitions, displays, and the performance programme. She is responsible for research and acquisitions into the collection with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Her most recent exhibition projects at Tate Modern are the 2023 Hyundai Commission: El Anatsui and the 2022-3 exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope.
Independently, her projects include Baltic Triennial 13 (Vilnius, Tallinn, Riga, 2018), as well as group exhibitions at FUTURA, Prague (2021) and M HKA, Antwerp (2021-22). She holds a BA and an MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of Oxford, where she was an Arts and Humanities Research Council Master’s Scholar. Her recent writings have been published by Distanz, Frans Masereel Centrum, and Cura Books.
Anastasia Akhvlediani ( b. 1996) is a Georgian artist currently based in Munich, Germany. She studied at the Free University Tbilisi Faculty of Visual Arts, Architecture, and Design (VA[A]DS) from 2014 to 2018, earning her Bachelor of Arts Degree. She taught at VA[A]DS as a drawing studio professor from 2021 to 2022.
In 2023 Anastasia Akhvlediani continued her studies at the Fine Arts Academy Munich, in the class of Professor Olaf Nicolai Sculpture and 3D Design. She participated in various group exhibitions and solo presentations, including Nevertold at Open Space, Tbilisi, Georgia, KNOW THY NEIGHBOR, OXYGEN Biennial (2020, Tbilisi, Georgia) Tbilisi Online Biennial (2020), Nariman (2019), and Obscura Workshops (2018, Tbilisi, Georgia). In the past Anastasia has explored unique spaces for showcasing her art, such as an abandoned Soviet school building in 2018 and the Parallel Vienna exhibition in 2017.
Nina Kintsurashvili (b. 1992) is based in Tbilisi. She earned her BFA in painting from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and MFA in Intermedia & Sculpture from The University of Iowa through the Fulbright award. She is a multidisciplinary artist working in various mediums. However, she often turns to the traditional painterly surface as her basal realm of artistic contemplation. Although abstract in its representation, her research-based process allows Kintsurashvili’s paintings to reference key Georgian visual codes resurfacing in the cultural vortex and explore heritage as a political commodity, with its self-imposed or involuntary negligence. The artist carefully studies collected visual material that arrives at her uncluttered studio in a lab-like manner. These are gathered from field visits to archaeological sites and searching through pre-archived Soviet archaeological data from Russian-occupied territories. Kintsurashvili, in staging such an environment, creates an opportunity for mental contamination, just slightly so that she still stands liberated in front of the canvas, allowing the abstracted vision to surpass.
Deconstructions, reflection, and mirroring concern Nina Kintsurashvili’s abstract paintings, where imagery of the collective subconscious and streams of auto-generated thoughts metamorphose into pneumatic forms floating in the abyss, disregarding perspective. Only the perforations in what seems like a new-age tissue expose the traces of ancient environments priorly observed by the artist. Quasi-figurative shapes are caught up in a constant stir of erasing and regeneration. Although entirely formal, this functionality has physical reference points: the vandalized, overpainted, and flaked murals in Georgian monasteries, some of which are architecturally excavated in rocks, only allowing a pierced tunnel vision. As an imperial act of Russian colonization, In 19th-century Georgia, medieval frescoes were whitewashed and painted over by contemporary Russian artists in an attempt to excavate and replace the culture or completely erase it. Since gaining independence in the 90s, efforts were put in by Georgian restorers to uncover original frescos, where Nina Kintsurashvili witnessed two images from different periods lay bare next to one another, clashing and fighting for the wall space. Poetic yet political was that memory for her, and the same could be said about her paintings.
Nina’s works have been exhibited in the Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography (Mestia, Georgia), Gallery Artbeat (Tbilisi, Georgia), LC Queisser (Tbilisi, Georgia), E.A. Shared Space (Tbilisi, Georgia), Commune Gallery (Vienna, Austria), PS1 Iowa City (IA, US), Ortega Y Gasset (NY, US) and Ekru Projects (KC, US).
Irena Popiashvili is a curator and educator. She completed her education at Javakhishvili State University, Tbilisi; University of Lodz, Poland, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Since 2013 she is the dean of Visual Art, Architecture, and Design School VA[A]DS at the Free University of Tbilisi. Additionally, she is a co-founder of Kunsthalle Tbilisi. Previously she was a co-owner of Popiashvili Gvaberidze Window Project, Tbilisi, Georgia (2013-2017), Newman Popiashvili Gallery, New York, USA (2005-2012), and the rector of the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (2012).
