Gallery 4710 is delighted to invite you to the group exhibition "From Pirosmani up to now: "Dedicated to all the former angels, but especially to Niko".
The exhibition presents artists of different generations, including Niko Pirosmanashvili. The main theme of the exhibition is school of Niko Pirosmanashvili and its influences in Georgian fine art.
The exhibition is the second part of the collaborative curatorial and research project of two curators, Kote Bolkvadze and Nini Darchia. In the first part of the project, the visitor got acquainted with the works of Emma Zar-Khutsi and attended a public lecture.
The exhibition will open on Saturday, April 13 and will continue until April 30.The title of the exhibition is inspired by Wim Wenders' 1987 iconic masterpiece “Wings of Desire”.
The exhibition "From Pirosmani up to now" is a kind of "translation" of Niko Pirosmanashvili's phenomenon and its continuation in our modern times. The identity of modern Georgian art is closely related to Pirosmani, which also led to the universal transparency of Georgian art in the Western artistic space. Primitivism and Naive have an important role in Georgian cultural consciousness, and it can be said that Pirosmani, as a cornerstone, created the continuity of this artistic tradition.
For continuity, it is important to create artistic research or curatorial "translations" in order to renew the flow of existing artists. The seven artists selected for the exhibition offer different perceptions and artistic solutions to the world of Pirosmani.The following artists are gathered in the visual fabric: Niko Pirosmanashvili, Vano Meliashvili, Emma Zar-Khutsi, Tan Ia, Nato Sirbiladze, Juli Robakidze and Natela Iankoshvili as a visual counterpoint.
Iankoshvili's figure is stylistically clearly dissonant with other artists, although Niko's artistic touch and handwriting can be seen most clearly and authentically, here it is important that she intended to rethink the great master and preserve her own identity. It is challenging for artists not to be overshadowed by Niko's artistic legacy. Iankoshvili's black background, lighting offer us an interesting "reading" of primitivism by a professional artist. The phenomenon of Vano Meliashvili reveals the fact of how self-made Georgian culture survived in the era of socialism. Emma Zar- Khutsi belongs to outsider art, where naive, folk, primitivism and female art are combined. Tan Ia is also an integral part of Tbilisi's primitivist wave, just like Nato Sirbiladze. Both artists established themselves in the 1980s from other professional backgrounds. Juli Robakidze started painting in the 2020s, at the age of 94.The Caucasian and especially the Tbilisi primitivist school is an international phenomenon and unites artists from many post-Soviet countries, their language reflects Georgian primitivism with primary national-cultural codes (Ema Zar-Khutsi - Uzbekistan, Tanya - Russia).
This exhibition, as well as the curatorial vision of the gallery, aims to continue the in- depth research of Georgian primitivism - "from Pirosmani up to now", to expand the primitivist school, to organize solo exhibitions of individual artists, which will connect Niko Pirosmani and Georgian primitivism in general, or its continuity, with our modernity. In this way, the translation of school of Pirosmani will acquire more universality in the world of contemporary artistic space.
