Koka Ramishvili | Vacuum

November 10 - December 2, 2022
Vacuum - Visualization of Emptiness in Koka Ramishvili's Works

Koka Ramishvili is one of the central figures in the history of current Georgian painting. His work wasshaped during a period of the most difficult changes of the post-Soviet era and was distinguishedfrom the very beginning through the reflexive character, a precise selec- tion of relevant forms andrespective mediums of a complex context. All his projects are consistently developed, conceptuallysound and executed with the application of a perfec- tionist drive making the artist an inquisitiveperson who always finds original connections between specific problems and abstract reasoning.

In the letter dedicated to the project presented at the Georgian pavilion of the 53rd VeniceBiennale  (2009),  where  Koka  Ramishvili  showed  his  multimedia  installation Change  in DrawingOrchestra Viktor Misiano refers to the artist as a "representative of the last Soviet generation". Hedefines Ramishvili’s creative task as follows: “This is a unity of contradic- tions that came face to facewith the "last Soviet generation", which is still searching for a universal solution. In the works, KokaRamishvili suggested his own way of solving these issues. One feature that is characteristic of many ofhis creations (both early and relatively new ones) is the designing of works based on a principle of acounterpoint. The binary model, which is so well connected to modernity and is completely reversed in the regional criticism openly manifests itself, that is, is shown in a way that does not overshadowany of the opposition sides. They exist next to each other."

In  the  1990s,  an  especially  critical  period  for  Georgia,  Koka  Ramishvili  was  busy with artisticinterpretations of the local context and its issues. During these years he created importantprojects  that  are  based  on  the  documentation  of  historical facts  later transformed  intocontradictory messages (War from My Window, Diplomatic Missions/Pronostic Eventual, etc.).

Since the beginning of the 2000s, Koka Ramishvili has been interchangeably living in Geneva and Tbilisi - afact which led to further delving into the topic of different contexts. In recent works, his interest  is focused  on  the  study  of  compositional  structure,  shape  and lighting, and the relationship between  colour  and  texture.  One  of  the  main  works defining  Ramishvili’s artistic vision, The LastGallery was shown on several occasions in different locations and at different times. Its first versionwas created in the late 1980s and sounded almost like a manifesto.

Of course, the context referred to the changes, which meant determination of worldviews, attitude towardsinformation, the process of understanding a new reality, as well as shaping of specific artistic tasks andattitude towards painting. Koka Ramishvili's works always contain references and accordingly, amultitude of meanings. The references lead us to the stories of visual experience which developediconic patterns of emptiness and conveyed the transience, disappearing atmospheres through markingof copyrighted works such as the films of Antonioni, Wenders, etc. The invisible processes taking place inspace, the exhibition practice, or designing of expositions intersect- ed with the history of painting, representation issues and a well-known concept of the end of art. The artist turns to reminiscence asthe foundation of the installation. The Last Gallery can be read as an allusion to Marcel Duchamp'swire installation from the exhibition The Emergence of Surrealism (1942) - one of the manyinterpretations of which says that this work symbolized difficulties that had to be overcome to see,perceive and understand the exhibition. In this work by Duchamp, the net of wires strung in theexhibition space also refers to a visualization of the invisible and indicates the communication betweenthe works and the relationship with the audience.

Koka Ramishvili addresses this topic at a time when Duchamp’s and the Modernists’ state- ments havealready been responded to by numerous post-modernist comments, and many new ideas have emergedin response to the phenomenon of the "image", its “breaking through” the frames, meaning ofcomposition in general. Supposedly Koka Ramishvili selected this topic due to the factor of the spaceand expanded it with a different, subjec- tive, and specific content. The canvas cut into ribbons andhanging down from the sub- frames interweaves into the space like a wire and completely occupies it. Theends of the cut canvases seem to end up as a pile of ashes in the centre of the space. Later, the same topic turned into an even more minimalistic video work Reader (2017), whose iconog- raphy expresses the often dramatic encounter between a work of art and its "user" through a clear and precise metaphor. Apopular message of the Duchamp era about the work's departure from the walls and the end of itsexistence as an object of aesthetic enjoyment, in Koka Ramishvili's The Last Gallery, continues withanother, new concept, where destruc- tion is a method and not an end in itself, that indicates more(non)revealed opportunities of painting rather than its exhaustion. Koka Ramishvili operates withemptiness as the main material for constructing works of different formats. His alphabet is based on dis-tance from the matter and an attempt to convey the non-verbal forms of expression. The image that should create an equivalent to such abstract concepts as emptiness or light requires a method ofdiscovery.Koka Ramishvili’s practice develops these methods and shapes his own program.

If  The  Last  Gallery  connects  the  concept  of  the  disappearance  of  an  image with  thepostmodernist discourse of the end of art, his large-scale and multimedia work project The DrawingLesson deals with the topic of mediums while at the same time transforming the non-verbal and transientconcepts into a poetic sign. The hand-drawn wave in the video fragment is conditional, and the sound ofa pencil touching the paper turns into the sound of sea waves due to associative anticipation.

The Black Sea which is shown at the National Gallery expands the conceptual development of alandscape and changes with the change of the context itself. In 2009 the work had a completely differentcontent at the Georgian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. There the same video was alternatelyprojected on all four walls of the same hall, bringing to life the topos, which were distant from thecharacter. Video strongly expressed mainstream dynamics of the Biennale and only existed beyond the contexts. In the context of the Vacuum exhibition, Black Sea only formally remains representative of aspecific topos. Here it intensifies the charge of ephemerality and transience in relation to The LastGallery and The Light Machines as if it just offers proof of the futility of the world without people.

The photo series The Light Machines (2017) reveals itself through different accents. Accord- ing to KokaRamishvili while working on the series he was inspired by the phenomenon of still life, landscape,light, movement, wider understanding, and sensible relations of these topics. In mentioned works stilllifes show compositions built with simple objects or frag- ments and resemble small-scaleconstructivist sculptures, where the shapes of geometri- cally organized compositions change in accordance  with  the  angle  of  the  illumination.  They  demonstrate  constant, continuous rotation,the nuances and variations of light that are inaccessible to the eye and can be perceived only thanks tothe high-sensitivity lenses. These architectural "readymades" show communication of their own elements.They look like living beings that agree with each other and obey a shared order of composition. As thewhole project aims at turning the invisible into a visual sign of emptiness, the series The Light Machinesdemonstrates another method of constructing this phenomenon. Here the artist applies the approach ofan architect and an engineer who create the transitory "vision" based on the relevant vision. The image isconveyed based on a geometrical order which at the same time disappears in front of a viewer.

Introduction of the theme of deconstruction into the atmosphere of the exposition with the allusion to the “Klavier Intégral", which develops focused on the motif of the myth of Orpheus, increases the tension and makes references to archetypes, the roots of the Greek tragedies and the experiences of catharsis.Transformation of the landscape and still life are turned into a kind of vacuum pressure, where seemingly peaceful images are distributed in space, or connected to each other through invisible links. It implies the emergence of a poetic sound, where the initial interest evolves around the research of therelationship between the compositional structures, shape and lighting, colour, and texture.

“In 1987, next to the studio, in the ruins of a house, I found a damaged piano, which I took apart andtransferred the shadow of each part to the canvas. For me, this work was and remains letter from Orpheus toEurydice. - Koka Ramishvili

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