WINDOW PROJECT at

ABU DHABI ART 2023 Special Projects Booth G16

For the Abu Dhabi Art 2023 Window Project presents a group presentation of Georgian artists. The exhibition combines paintings, graphics, tapestries and sculptures from different generations of creators.

LEVANI's (Levan Mindiashvili) (b.1979) artistic practice is based on investigating and exploring public and private spaces, their dependence on each other and their influence on contemporary society. We all face that today, the notions of "public" and "private" are intertwined, and the borders are blurred between communal and personal spaces.

Mindiashvili developed a body of work exploring urban landscapes that inform our sense of identity and our intimate connections with the spaces we inhabit. It started with the observations of exposed side facades of Buenos Aires (Argentina) while he lived there, and after his move to New York, this topic became more intertwined with his personal story and the urge to define and find the 'place'. Levani became more focused on the idea of 'home' and the issues related to gentrification and displacement; for many of us today, a sense of place is more accurately identified as a sense of displacement — triggered by economics, gentrification, politics or war.

The primary source for Levani's work from the series "Unintended Archeology of (un)Place" are photographs made during his trips to Tbilisi during 2012 - 2015. Large-scale paintings – depicting random snapshots of the city and rigorously rendered in several layers of acrylic paint and gel medium – mimic vintage, pixelated photographs and question our perception of the past and 'taught' history. "Unintended Archeology of (un)Place" outlines the temporal and ephemeral nature of the notions of 'place' and 'home' in today's world.

SHOTIKO APTSIAURI (1997) is known for his monumental installations and paintings with different materials and contexts and poetic investigation into the architectural, political and archaic structures. Shotiko Aptsiauri has successfully united other mediums and complexities into his art practice. Shotiko Aptsiauri's works are presented in several ensembles; each articulated around a story with intimate and collective resonances. In Waterless Swimming, for example, the history of public swimming lessons in waterless ponds due to the inability to fill the pools following the fall of the USSR in Georgia reminds us of the performative powers of the imagination, especially when it is collective and outlines the struggles that it can cause. Echoing recent demonstrations in Georgia against specific government measures that could endanger the country's natural heritage, Shotiko Aptsiauri created the series of works gathered under the name Clearing Forest, building the temple, exploring the cohabitation of the organic and the artificial and questioning notions of refuge, security and control - of oneself, of others, of the natural world plastically. Shotiko Aptsiauri's works are thus presented as plastic and sensorial tales that draw on the essence of these narratives and transmit their dramatic and existential strength.

The emergence of stained-glass art in Georgia has been considerably influenced by VAKHTANG KOKIASHVILI(1930-2010). He is best known for creating the following works: stained glass windows in the interior of the former Hotel Iveria (Tbilisi), at the lower station of the Tbilisi Funicular, at the Tbilisi International Airport, at the Institute of Physiology (Tbilisi); painting and stained glass window at the Hotel Metekhi (Tbilisi). His works have also been presented in other Georgian cities and locations: Kutaisi, Abasha, Kvareli, Tskhinvali, Sukhumi, Adler, Pitsunda, recreational complexes of the Ritsa Lake (Abkhazia) and Nalchik (Russian Federation), numerous sites in Moscow (Russian Federation), Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Since the 1990s, Vakhtang Kokiashvili has become active in the production of pop art series. Horizontal expansion of artistic expression and cultural value is furthered in his work by using many different forms of production (abstract paintings, collages, assemblages, works on enamel and installations). Vakhtang Kokiashvili died in his house–studio in Tbilisi in 2010 after several months of illness, though he never stopped working.

UTA BEKAIA (b.1974) engages multiple artistic mediums, creating wearable sculptures, performances, and videos, where the borders between the disciplines are blurred, and the cultural references are synthesized in his personalized vision. With a background in fashion and costume making at the beginning of his career, Bekaia transformed these mediums into the primary means to approach the human body and fully emerge into performances. Inspired by ancient mythology, fairy tales, Italian Baroque, and Georgian Dada, Bekaia, with his exuberant, sculptural costumes, reinvents, and re-stages long lost, never-before-documented rituals. Believing in the genetical transferability of communal memory, Bekaia attempts to reconnect with the ancient knowledge and impregnate it with his own experiences and new meaning.