EXTENSION.GE. IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU WOULD BE HOME

TATO AKHALKATSISHVILI, UTA BEKAIA, TAMARA KVESITADZE, LUCA LAZAR, LEVAN MINDIASHVILI, DARO SULAKAURI, RUSUDAN KHIZANISHVILI, LEVAN CHELIDZE, NINO CHUBINISHVILI, GIORGI CHKHEIDZE

Triumph Gallery in partnership with Ria Keburia Foundation, ERTI Gallery and Window Project, Tbilisi, presents the 11th edition of the EXTENSION project—If You Lived Here, You Would Be Home. In line with now traditional approach to exploring different national art scenes, ten Georgian contemporary artists, who represent various media and subject matters, are brought together by their interest in heritage and cultural memory.

Georgia has always existed at the crossroads, from the Ottoman Empire to the Soviet regime, from the Rose Revolution to the era of the new oligarchs. Having overcome a deep trauma, Georgia is now a vital link in cultural exchanges. In spite of many years of migration, regime change and economic turmoil, Georgians have managed to preserve their national heritage, avoiding the fate of “the cultural melting pot” that has befallen neighboring lands. This cultural depth and richness can be seen in the work of Georgian contemporary artists, who continue to explore their deep ties with tradition and cultural memory, even if working in cities all over the world. Georgia, with its special cadence of life, seems to have avoided the identity crisis that many other nations face today. With a slower pace to life and a tendency towards meditative contemplation, the atmosphere of this country lets you focus on actual values, reflect upon the changing present and consider alternative ways forward.

Extension.ge: If You Lived Here, You Would Be Home displays an overview of Georgian contemporary art by presenting artists with diverse background. All exhibition artists belong to the generation which is part of the new dynamic scene that looks beyond the geography of their national borders. Without ignoring their cultural identity and possessing particular experience of contemporary reality, these artists make a claim to international presence and benefit from their openness and desire for exchange.

Exploring transitional fluid state of historically accepted social forms and paradigms, the exhibition revisits the notions of place, identity and history. It doesn’t propose answers or solutions, but it does offer opportunities to closely examine artistic practices, storytelling and new perspectives. The profound intergenerational impact of postcolonialism, economic exploitation and ideology requires nuanced insights and experiential responses, which inevitably shapes the reality and brings about new artistic practices. Participants of Extension.ge: If You Lived Here, You Would Be Home are renegotiating the definitions of place and home in order build renewed links between the notions of memory, geography, identity.

Luca Lazar “Moving Stills And Beyond – Ethereal Transformations”

Curator: Heike Fuhbruegge

Exhibition dates: December 15 — February 5 Project Partner: SOLO

The Geogian-born artist Luca Lasareishvili (*1957), who goes by the international artist name Luca Lazar, presents in his first solo-exibition Moving Stills and Beyond: Ethereal Transformations at ERTI Gallery six of his brilliant new abstract paintings and a large scale videowork.

Luca Lazar, who lives and works in New York, explains his art as, “distinctively sensuous and complex in their simplicity”. Because he is concerned with structures, systems, rhythm, information, perception, and thus also about social utopias and reforms. His refined use of texture grants form, color and image design far-reaching autonomy of the figurative. The current exhibited works are part of Lazar’s continuous production of his minimalist abstract series Moving Stills, consisting of works that depict movement in time. Using a vocabulary of minimalist forms, the individual works in this series give the suggestion of energetic movement within a motionless, frozen setting. The works reflecting the experienceofabstractionof oursurroundingenvironment,andthenecessityforLazar”toportray how we experience the elements of nature and structure”.

 

Lazar is an accomplished, award-winning artist with a long-standing track record, whose art has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world and whose works are part of internationally renown museums including Museum Ludwig — Aachen collection (Germany), Documenta Archive Museum Fridericianum — Kassel — (Germany), Gallery de France (Paris), Zimmerli Art Museum, NJ(USA), National Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow (Russia), Henry Nannen Museum- Emdem (Germany), Leopold Hoish Museum — Duren (Germany) State Art Museum (Tbilisi).

This exhibition is of the utmost importance to him and Georgia, both connected in history, after decades of an artistic career abroad.

Abstraction Matters — Past and Present

Lazar was part of a minority in Georgian artists’ generation in 1970-80s. They searched for their own ways beyond the soviet art requirements. Thus, the interest in abstract and conceptual art sparked. Though, the process was illegal. At that time creating “non-soviet” art more looked like a political activity and defined political position. Lazar continuing to pursue abstract art, although he had great difficulties in the beginning. He decided to move to Moscow instead, where he briefly joined the underground avant-garde art movement, which had sprung up during the early years of Glasnost and Perestroika.

The abstract paintings who are on show, seem to return to their source. All display a motion in space and seeming fluidity. Yet each particle in these works exists in its own defined boundaries, exact size and precise direction, thereby creating an absorbent vibration that has simultaneously converging as well as diverging features. The entirety of movement and course of all elements in ostensible chaos, yet concrete formative structure when looked upon from a distance, provide the works a transcendent, reflective quality.

The video Moving Stills and Beyond: Ethereal Transformations (9:42 min, 2018, Ed. of 3) that is part of the show clearly highlights the artistic exploration. It portrays an extensive series of natural and human- made constructive as well as destructive manifestations in never-ending visual patterns, orders and sequences, that ultimately lead to and culminate in an all-encompassing destruction and chaos, as depicted by an nuclear bomb explosion, only to make one realize that this in itself again is the beginning for an endless continual flow of natural and human arrangements. In a way the video could be considered a basic introduction to understanding the paintings that make up the larger part of the exhibition.

Following his time in Moscow, Lazar was invited to spend a year as an artist-in-residence in Paris, France, followed by a similar invitation by the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany. This led to his eventual 15 year stay in Germany, followed by his departure for the United States. He has been living in New York City since 2003.

Dr. Heike Fuhlbrügge, curator and author Berlin/Germany A catalog accompanies the exhibition

Official Host: Ambassador Tbilisi