In the Mirrors of the West / contemporary Georgian Painting

In the Mirrors of the West / contemporary Georgian Painting / 18.08.2022 - 22.09.2022

The Culture and Art Centre in Wroclaw and the City Gallery invite you to a group exhibition of Georgian artists. The exhibition presents the works of 14 artists whose realizations are based on classical themes of European painting.

The official opening of the exhibition will take place on August 18 (Thursday) at 18:00 at the City Gallery. The opening will be complemented by a Georgian musical event – a concert by pianist Nino Nishnianidze, who will perform accompanied by 4 singers: Irakli Korifadze, Otar Nakashidze, Eter Khalvashi, Irma Jgenti.

The creative exchange of attitudes and ideas between Poland and Georgia has a long tradition. Currently, one of its most unquestionable and momentous results is the Polish-Georgian Culture Festival, organized since 2017 by the Culture and Art Centre in Wroclaw – an elaborate project carried out in both countries, consisting of film, theater, music and exhibition events.

Through the exhibition “In the mirrors of the West / Contemporary Georgian Painting”, organized in the spaces of Wroclaw City Gallery, the audience will have the opportunity to get acquainted with Adjaran contemporary painting – painting, which, although it grows out of European artistic traditions, in its overtones is not devoid of local historical context, which is both its background and construct. For it is worth recalling that since 1921 – so also during the period of intense formation of modern creative attitudes in Europe – Georgia was part of the Soviet empire. However, despite the aesthetics imposed on the local artists by the communist authorities, they managed to develop independent centers of avant-garde art, whose ideological basis was experimentation in the area of language, matter or composition of the work.

For this reason, current Georgian painting combines many artistic tendencies. Despite a conscious attitude of opposition to the cultural policies of Soviet Russia, local art still echoes to some extent the views on art of the time. On the other hand, Georgian artists draw extensively on the European creative output of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as on Euro-Atlantic painting achievements of the second half of the past century. In turn, the rich experience of the phenomenon of multiculturalism, which is particularly present in Batumi, which is culturally open and touristic, allows local artists to constantly expand the context of their own formal and narrative explorations.

It is in this panorama of artistic attitudes that the works of fourteen artists will be presented at the Wroclaw City Gallery. The artists selected for the exhibition represent different generations and, above all, distinct formal attitudes. Most of the works are dominated by classical subjects of European painting, such as landscapes, portraits, and still lives, executed mainly in acrylic and oil, but also in tempera, gouache and watercolor. It is important to clearly emphasize that Batumi art is not a tautology of Western art – it is its separate quality, which was often forged in times of captivity, national and ideological resistance.

Artists: Luka Beselia, Beka Bolkvadze, Giorgi Bolkvadze, Maia Chkonia, Kako Dzneladze, Sergo Gogoladze, Jemal Gorgiladze, Akaki Jashi, Zurab Kochalidze, Spartak Kudba, Gela Meskhi, Guram Putkaradze, Lado Sharashidze, Irina Toronjadze

Curators: Kako Dzneladze, Manfred Bator

The exhibition runs until 22 September 2022.