What is common and what differs between Georgian artist collectives of the late 1980s and those of today are among the questions explored by curator and researcher Vija Skangale in this text. The collectives Archivarius, 10th Floor, and Marjanishvili Theatre collective, or “Marjanishvilebi,” formed during a time of political transformation to directly address economic scarcity and social instability via collectivity, experimentation, and the search for new forms of expression. Project Fungus, which emerged in 2020 from a burgeoning underground culture scene, addresses discrimination against LGBTQUI+ people in Georgia as well as the homophobia and intolerance endemic to Georgian society using a collective platform to amplify a multitude of creative voices.
Bonjour! Morning air on the way from our hotel to the “Not New Now” or the sixth Marrakech Biennale was filled with a mixture of hot dust, a motor rollers’ loud noise and a delicate smell of spices.
When we arrived at a relatively new and central part of Marrakech called Gueliz, we found a Soviet architecture style building where Marrakech Biennale office resides. Here, on 62 Yugoslavia str., our exploration of Marrakech Biennale 6 began. Wandering around, we found several rooms dedicated to video art, mixed media art and installations on the roof terrace. The unexpected morning emptiness in the building with no invigilators or visitors was charming, creating a setting for an intimate viewing of the works by Aida Muluneh, Emanuel Tegene, Ephrem Solomon, Tamrat Gezahengne, among others.
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How does the close proximity between the urban periphery and nature influence one another? What happens when the artist attempts to dissolve the boundaries between dichotomic notions of “urban” and “nature” blur and create a new utopian reality? These complex questions can be explored in the project Flowers Are for All
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Karlo Kacharava: The Salient Truth of the ‘Supernova
Karlo Kacharava (1964–1994) played a remarkable role in shaping the multidis- ciplinary artistic landscape of his native Georgia. As an artist, art critic, art his- torian, poet and writer, the body of work he produced in his short life has been described as ‘oceanic’1. It explores themes of love2 and sex, but also and above all issues relating to the socio-political climate that prevailed in Georgia at the time. His paintings, diaries and texts are intricately interconnected, and form a cohesive tapestry that cannot be examined separately. Kacharava had a keen eye for artistic synthesis and merged the influences of German Romanticism and Expressionism to create a unique visual language that became his signature
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Showing my husband, then-boyfriend, a collection of my childhood photographs, I came across one of a four-year-old me on a papier-mâché horse in Tbilisi Zoo.
I was born in Tbilisi in the 1980s, back when the country was still a part of the Soviet Union. Visiting the zoo was a special event for me: it meant that I would get a Plombir ice cream, a cup of sparkling gazirovka (a non-alcoholic sparkling beverage), and a ride on an amusement ride adjacent to the premises. But the highlight of the day would always be getting the chance to sit on the papier-mâché horse that looked like it had galloped from a merry-go-round ride. I remember being helped onto the horse, filled with anticipation and excitement at having my photo taken, but also overcome with shyness in front of the photographer
Revisiting the childhood memory made me curious to learn more about this papier-mâché horse and the person behind the camera. I embarked on my search for the photographer only to find the Tbilisi Zoo holds no archive. After much digging around, and enquiring on social media, I found out that Victor Sukiasov (1930-2017) was the unsung photographer in question.
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Press about this project