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.

“IMAGE AND LIKENESS” – Exhibition at Moma Tbilisi

Tato Akhalkatsishvili solo show THE VELVET SUN. Curated by Domenico De Chirico

 
THE VELVET SUN

Curated by Domenico De Chirico

February 15 — May 5

Project Partner : SOLO

Tato Akhalkatsishvili’s incessant research through his work is perpetually and deeply imbued with dreams whose aura influences over the present, in which the earth and its events transcend the limits of reality by placing themselves in inscrutable temporal systems. Akhalkatsishvili’s work is mainly artistic, but his experimentation also embraces other layers as well the exhibition.

The thread that joins all his works, and regardless of the expressive layer used by the artist, remains constant and every re-research through a visual trip reaches something never fully attainable, but revealing itself in its unattainability. Akhalkatsishvili aims to find that non-spatial point or that non-temporal moment, in which past and present meet each other and in which the psychological connections, together with our subconscious memory, are connected to the actions performed in the present or actions fulfilled everyday at the moment of choosing, having their roots in complicated hereditary things. Surely, such research is viscerally linked to the sociological and political dynamics that are significant to the most recent history of Georgia and the post-Soviet countries and particularly, the relationship between these nations with ambiguous present and almost intangible future. His attention focuses on the way of life of the nations involved and оn the most extreme political dynamics in terms of regime.

 

 
The title of the exhibition refers to different historical moments, but not so completely, as these moments are connected because of various reasons and changes, as times are united and the worlds of generations meet each other. Promising force of the Sun, brilliance of which is nevertheless given by the reflections of its deep fabric, has turned into troublesome and often difficult realities, always directed towards the growing world, in which past experiences can rely on the most prescient visions.

Thus, such a diverse interest finds its way within the landscapes of altered outlines, through an imaginative level, in which one can glimpse figurative elements of real events and above all, one feels the emotional strength relative to what one is looking at.

That expressive feature that characterizes the art works of Tato Akhalkatsishvili takes completely symbiotic connection with his researches, as if the lines and colors are speaking a language made of personal memories, which is universal at the same time. Those bright and almost overwhelming colors that sometimes seem to tremble have something in common with the fire, whether they are colors corresponding to this element or other shades of colour and thereby, they imitate the movement of some kind of dance, which now exists and then vanishes away, being different all the time. These forms seem to point on a movement that does not exist, but to which they fiercely yearn, over such desire for a movement, in which the images of yesterday and today are enveloped together and in which the consciousness takes shape in its wonderful and complicated reality.

Tato Akhalkatsishvili’s THE VELVET SUN _ curated by Domenico De Chirico | ERTI Gallery | SOLO_Project Partner

Tomorrow Will Be Yesterday | Group Show

Tomorrow Will Be Yesterday
Curator: Andrey Misiano

ERTI Gallery presents the exhibition Tomorrow Will Be Yesterday, which is based on a study of the work of a broad group of artists whose origins are inextricably tied with the Caucasian region. This is the third in a series of exhibitions¹ devoted to the contemporary art scene in the Caucasus. The range of themes of the first two exhibitions included the loss of home, forced migration, the politics of identity, and history after the “end of history.” The present exhibition mostly focuses on history, geopolitics and ethnic strife in the region. It examines the experience of individuals and whole nations confronted with historical cataclysms and change.

The exhibition opens with Types du Caucase (2013 — present) by the Dagestani artist Taus Makhacheva. This work is a collection of postcards from the Russian Empire depicting different Caucasian tribes and religious groups according to all the rules of exoticization. It is noteworthy that the original captions were written in the two languages (Russian and French) spoken by the elite of the time.

The works of the Swedish-based artist Lusine Djanyan and the Azerbaijani artist Sitara Ibrahimova examine the arguably biggest (and still unresolved) ethnic conflict in the Caucasus: the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Originating in the Early Modern Period, this conflict flared out twice in the 20th century during the disintegration of the Russian Empire and the breakup of the USSR. Djanyan’s Ires (2014) consists of sewn-together blankets with images of several genera- tions of the artist’s family, alluding to the hot phase of the conflict during the Perestroika. The “ires” is a special cut of a precious fabric that is applied to the upper part of a blanket. Many Ar- menian refugees that left Azerbaijan in 1988 wrapped their belongings in a bundle made of such fabric. Ibrahimova’s photo series Lost in Karabakh (2009 — present) is also connected with the material world of people that went through the catastrophe of war. Ibrahimova photographs the belongings of people that disappeared during the conflict. Rather than imposing a specific plot or complex narrative on the viewer, this series of images simply shows a quiet world of things that will never serve their owners again. Tato Akhalkatsishvili’s new work “Tomorrow will be yesterday” 2018, treats a special type of conflict that takes place in human memory. Although his goal is to generalize collective images, he starts with his personal memories of a childhood, of a country that has long since disappeared (and perhaps had never existed in the first place), and of the areas and collisions of history that have still not been evaluated in a clear-cut fashion and continue to be revised and discussed.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union led to the outbreak of several armed ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The most severe and protracted among them was the Chechen War. At the exhibition, the Chechen artist Aslan Gaisumov presents his collection of Postcards (2015) issued during the short period between the two wars during the existence of independent Ichkeria (1996-1999). They have one remarkable feature in common: instead of scenic landscapes or brightly lit skyscrapers that are usually depicted on postcards, they show views of war-ravaged Grozny.

In addition to ethnic conflicts on the territory of the former USSR, a civil war broke out in Georgia in 1991-1992. At the peak of the fighting, Koka Ramishvili photographed the skirmishes in the center of Tbilisi from his window. The video project War from My Window shows the war in an intentionally quiet and subdued way, highlighting the mix of the eternal and the temporal that marked the moment. The work contains no national, territorial or political messages, simply depicting the same landscape during twelve days of (invisible) war.

Makhacheva’s Landscape thematically unifies the exhibition without touching upon any of the sore spots of the history of countries and republics. Introducing the dimension of the landscape into the exhibition in a witty manner, it consists of a spatially arranged series of noses of different Caucasian peoples. There are several folk sagas in Dagestan, about men, who have lost their noses. In the Avar language the word “мerlep” means both “mountain” and “nose”, demonstrating how strongly the mountain-dwellers identify with the mountains. Together they symbolize the Greater Caucasus mountain range — a territory whose history has been troubled for over two thousand years already.

¹ Untitled… (Native Foreigners), Garage Museum, Moscow, July 7 — August 10, 2014; Life from My Win- dow, Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan, October 19, 2017 — January 26, 2018.

Never Sleep Upside Down

The exhibition presents multimedia installation, which gives the association of galaxy.
A mankind is the only creature on earth, able to perform the act of looking at the sky with defining it in various content and motivation. For every individual “looking upwards” is related to intimacy and often indicates to having the sort of skill feeling infinity, inaccessibility, hope and deep sensibility, which is often doomed or forgotten by life routine. The text “Never ask me, what I am doing on the roof of the house” underlines mystical feelings, which artist experiences in this case.
 
Multimedia installations and canvases – landscapes with blurred horizons with mystic and surrealistic moods – depicts private transcendental feelings and psychological conditions, which usually accompanies the issues of existentialism and the search for the blurred future, which itself is an utopia.
 
A mushroom is a multifunctional organism on earth. One of the sort of it is “Amanita Muscaria”, which has the effect of losing fear of anything, getting crazy and having some hallutinations. Historically It is known, that the people of north used to drink particularly this mushroom bullion before the war, and afterwards the victory was becoming inevitable.
 
Installation “AMANITA MUSCARIA” is the condition of a man, freed from any kind of fear, with a dualistic and utopian opportunities, when there are no boundaries, trajectory or any route…

ERTI Gallery is delighted to present artworks of Tato Akhalkasishvili at Vienna Contemporary 2017, which will take place at Marx Halle, September 21-24

Tato Akhalkasishvili (B.1979) is a Georgian based artist. He works in painting, in addition he makes objects, installations and collages. Akhalkasishvili expresses important issues and concepts with the help of different metaphors. Childhood is one of the primary themes in his art. He portrays childhood memories, post-soviet traumas, perk of human existence. The artist develops his works always in series.
 

“Voca” – “(Calling”) – one of the highlight series – is an attempt to reflect the psychological condition, when, a human being, first starts to realize, that the world we are living in, is not simple, it can be cruel or dangerous and stands before the dilemma. Artist reflects the process of discovering the world, with its frustrations, ambitions, fears and hopes.
 

Growing up in late years of communist era and passing teenage years in Post – Soviet transitional period- Akhalkatsishvili had to deal with continuous clashes of value system and socio-cultural structures.
 

“Born in”, where he uses different wooden toys and objects as a metaphor, demonstrates fragile and inadequate world of a child in comparison to the real world. Among the cut-outs of depictions of different kids, there is one image that is often repeated from work to work: a little boy with naive smile, driving vintage, mechanical car,-mainly placed in emptied abandoned swimming pool or dark, almost theatrical background. That’s the artist himself, the only image he uses from his own archives. By using these images Akhalkasishvili engage the viewer with their own memories and interpretations.
 

Tato Akhalkatsishvili graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (1996-2003) were he was a member of “figurative Art Studio”. The studio had a great success in Germany. Since 2000s Tato’s artworks have been mainly exhibited abroad. Twice in Tokyo (“Mitsukoshi” Art Gallery) and regularly in Europe and USA.
 

VIP Preview: 20 September Preview:12:00 – 17:00 Vernissage: 17:00 – 21:00
Public days: 21-22 September 11:00 – 19:00 23-24 September
11:00 – 18:00

Psilocybin Mushrooms

Psychedelic trip is one of the practices of structuring “other” reality, beyond which the “real” world turns into mirage and the border between facts and personal interpretations is blurred.

In 1946, the United States tested nuclear weapons within the framework of Operation Crossroads: a series of explosions took place at Bikini Atoll (the Marshall Islands). These experiments resulted in environmental problems discussed widely in the media. After these events, designer Louis Reard presented a new version of a swimsuit – one divided into two parts like a “Bikini-divided atom”. The documentary footage of explosions is compared to the pictures of gigantic mushrooms or flowers formation, where reality and absurd produce almost surrealistic visions associated with mushrooms of hallucinogenic properties.

The series of conceptual landscapes by Tato Akhalkatsishvili titled Psilocybin Mushrooms represent artistic fantasies built on the crossing points of informational streams, where history, associations and interpretations are constantly interacting. The artist’s favorite landscape theme starts with sophisticated painterly compositions expanding the existential drama through objects in the installation thus constructing a space of complex content.

Psilocybin Mushrooms, like Tato Akhalkatsishvili’s art as a whole, displays a complicated, emotional and enigmatic space where the random system of visual signs reveals such motives as power games or results of monopoly on technologies. At the same time, any theme developed in his projects carries an inner deliberation on the problems of contemporary art, its possibilities or qualities that are yet to be discovered.

Khatuna Khabuliani
Art critic

ARTISTERIUM9. Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia. 06.11.2017

Tomorrow Will Be Yesterday 02. Artvilla Gariyula. 17.09.2016

“Tomorrow will be yesterday” is a multimedia project, which is accomplished on various locations, be it museums, galleries or nature. At this stage Tato has created three different installations with a mixed technique, where he used sculptures, oil paintings, prints, wood, garments, paper, ground, rubber, raw materials and ready-made objects. The project was based on artist’s observations on conditions like manipulation with traditions, psychological terror, trembling as a result of unconscious fear towards the former manipulators who were once very powerful. So the name of the project is the representation of this never ending cycle that rolls besides happy, colorful and interesting natural life experiences.

COSMOSCOW 2016

“Light
Light
The visible reminder of Invisible Light”
– T.S Eliot

The exposition of TNN Gallery at COSMOSCOW International Art Fair 2016, presented an absolutely different artists, they both create different artistic variations in the dimension of light. Both Zurab Arabidze and Tato Akhalkatsishvili works in mixed media, though both artistic visions are completely different and distinguished with its individuality.

Zurab Arabidze born in 1980 Tbilisi, Georgia. Nowadays he lives and works in Moscow. His works presented at COSMOSCOW are completely dedicated to the mystery of light, which uses photon as a metaphor in a physics of elementary particles. The contact of the light and the water– two main beginnings of life – finds its expression in the vivid geometrical compositions. In these series of works, the artist impressively shows how the light particles are spread on the surface of a sea, where invisible particles attract each other. For the Zurab the structure of a cosmos and it’s acting particles is the sample of a human being, where at one glance a chaotic world is a subject to the certain dynamism, one strives to meet its second half, or a lost particle. In artist’s opinion these dynamism is motivated with the invisible or unconscious fear of loneliness in an infinite universe.

Tato Akhalkatsishvili, born in 1979, Tbilisi, Georgia, lives and works in Tbilisi. An optional and a symbolic understanding of the light is the corner stone of Tato’s abstract landscapes within included fragments of contrasting photo collages. Unconscious fears, weird psychological mood fragments grown from our memory looks like a puzzle. This is a dimension of a subjective sense of the history, where the time boundaries are disappeared and on the scene stay emotional conditions with loneliness, with its secret, with searching for solutions and returning to the childhood’s unconscious conditions.

To sum up, presented exposition offers high standard artistic interpretations, where two artistic visions meet each other on the subject of a light.

Press:

1. http://style.rbc.ru/view/art/57c7ed7c9a7947a35c9d9bf6
2. http://www.bazaar.ru/culture/heroes/nezavisimyy-vzglyad-na-yarmarku-cosmoscow-2016/

Video: