Group Exhibition - My Sister Named...

L'Atlas Gallery: 4 cour de l’Île Louviers, 75004 Paris

22 March - 24 May, 2024

The group exhibition titled ‘My Sister Named...’ presented by Gallery Artbeat offers a compelling exploration into the interconnected themes of fluidity, transition, immigration and identity within the Georgian context.  A Group show featuring the works of Tamuna Chabashvili, Ana Gzirishvili, Tamo Jugeli, Nina Kintsurashvili, Keti Kapanadze, Anna K.E., Ema Lalaeva-Ediberidze,  Maia Naveriani, Vera Pagava, Elene Shatberashvili, Tamuna Sirbiladze and Nato Sirbiladze.

Within the exhibition space, each artist crafts autonomous realms that engage in a fluid dialogue with space, time, and each other. Through diverse mediums such as painting, collage, drawing, video, and installation, the artists invite viewers to immerse themselves in an exploration of Georgian cultural context across different historical periods. It's crucial to highlight that the context of migration serves as a unifying thread, connecting artists across nearly every generation. Through a curated selection of works by prominent women artists spanning multiple generations, the exhibition provides a nuanced examination of identity, societal shifts and personal narratives. The curatorial decision draws inspiration from Zygmunt Bauman's theoretical framework on modernity.

In the ‘Solid State’ section, established women artists from earlier generations delve into traditional notions of stability and fixed identities, capturing the enduring essence of solid modernity through mediums such as painting. Modernist figures like Vera Pagava and Ema Lalaeva- Ediberidze stand alongside artists who navigated the challenges of the Soviet period and offer insights into the social structures and cultural traditions that define the solid phase of modernity, while also acknowledging its inherent limitations.

The transition phase, represented in the ‘Melting Solid’ section, marks the dissolution of traditional norms and the emergence of a more fluid and uncertain reality. Women artists navigate this period of flux, reflecting on themes of transition, identity flux, and the erosion of boundaries. Figures such as Tamuna Chabashvili, Keti Kapanadze, Maia Naveriani, and Tamuna Sirbiladze symbolize the intensive migration of Georgian creators to Western artistic spaces during the transitional period, challenging established hierarchies and exploring new conceptual territories.
Nato Sirbiladze represents a relatively older generation that didn't emigrate abroad. She's emblematic of this period, having lived through the Soviet era and commenced her work in the 1990s, a time when everything in the local area was collapsing

Finally, the exhibition culminates in the ‘Liquid State’, where contemporary women artists offer insights into the fluid nature of human existence in the era of liquid modernity. Nina Kintsurshvili, Elene Shatberashvili, Ana Gzirishvili, Anna K.E., and Tamo Jugeli, representing the new generation, embody the fluidity of contemporary identities amidst Georgia's transition from colonialism to nationhood. Their works explore themes of connectivity, fragmentation, and resilience, capturing the constant flux of identities in a rapidly changing contexts.

Solid state

Solid state Vera Pagava and Ema Lalaeva-Ediberidze stand as pillars of unwavering modernity, epitomizing an era defined by steadfast commitments, centralized planning, and entrenched social hierarchies. Ema Lalaeva-Ediberidze, a pioneering female artist residing in Tbilisi during the early 20th century, tragically fell victim to repression in 1938. Her husband was unjustly branded as a traitor to her homeland, arrested, and deported. Her oeuvre occupies a central position in the formative years of the Georgian avant-garde movement, offering invaluable insights into the essence of Georgian modernism. Renowned as one of the most progressive artists of her epoch, Lalaeva-Ediberidze skillfully infused her creations with diverse avantgarde currents, including Cubism, Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Luchism, and Constructivism. Vera Pagava (1907, Tbilisi – 1988, Paris) emerges as a luminary in the realms of painting, graphic art, decoration, and monumentalism, leaving an indelible mark on the French art scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Hailing from Tbilisi, Pagava embarked on a transformative journey, relocating to Paris in 1923 and establishing herself as a distinguished Georgian artist in the heart of France. Delving into Pagava's artistic narrative necessitates a nuanced exploration of her biography, contextualized not only within the vibrant milieu of Paris and its global sphere but also against the backdrop of twentieth-century Georgian history. The tumultuous political landscape of her homeland during the 1920s thrust Pagava into the dual roles of émigré and exile, shaping her artistic identity profoundly.

Melting Solid

Melting Solid During the transitional period known as the ‘Melting Solid’, there was a significant in flux of Georgian creators into Western artistic spaces, marking a unique phase in the history of new Georgian art leading up to the 1990s. With Georgia's transition to an independent country in the 1990s, existing institutions and socio-cultural models underwent substantial changes or disappeared altogether. Figures like Tamuna Chabashvili,  Keti Kapanadze, Maia Naveriani and Tamuna Sirbiladze, symbolize this migration, each contributing in distinct ways. Tamuna Chabashvili emerges as a seminal figure within Georgian art history, pioneering the introduction of themes centered around gender research and the examination of gender violence against women in the context of Georgian society. Her oeuvre delves into the intricate layers of personal and collective histories, notably exploring narratives of emigration and forced displacement. Kapanadze played a pivotal role in conceptual art, while Naveriani focused on challenging established hierarchies. One notable representative of this period is Nato Sirbiladze, who experienced the Soviet era and began her artistic career in the tumultuous 1990s, a time of upheaval in the local area. Sirbiladze commenced painting at the age of 31, and the absence of formal professional training allowed her to explore and develop her unique artistic style. This transitional era not only witnessed the physical movement of Georgian artists but also a shift in artistic paradigms and ideologies. The dissolution of traditional structures opened up new avenues for experimentation and expression, leading to the emergence of diverse artistic voices like Sirbiladze's. Through their work, these artists navigate the complexities of identity and societal transformation.

Liquid State

In Bauman's notion of liquidity, it refers to the constant state of flux and uncertainty characteristic of contemporary society, where identities are no longer fixed but fluid, subject to continual change and adaptation. Representing the generation of liquidity, Nina Kintsurshvili, Ana Gzirishvili, Anna K.E., Elene Shatberashvili, and Tamo Jugeli embody the fluidity of contemporary individual during Georgia's transition. As artists nearly the same age as Georgian independence itself, they grew up in times of uncertainty, transformation, and the search for a collective cultural identity, all while the country was transitioning from Russian and later Soviet colonialism to an independent nation. Growing up in such times of uncertainty, they create works that capture the constant flux of identities, challenging the fixed nature of identity seen in solid phases. Their artworks, described as snapshots in constant flux, echo the easy flow of fluids, contrasting with the resistance to change found in solids.

Text by Ani Jorjiashvili

Tamuna Chabashvili is a visual artist based in Tbilisi and Amsterdam. She received her B.A. in Fine Arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, NL. In 2003 she co-founded the artists' initiative 'Public Space With A Roof' (PSWAR) in Amsterdam. From 2003-2007 it functioned as a project space. PSWAR projects have been shown internationally at the Frederick Kiesler Foundation in Vienna, Austria and at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France, among other places. Her project Supra of Her Own was exhibited at the Nectar Gallery Tbilisi, 2014, the Kuad Gallery as the parallel program of the 14th Istanbul Biennial, and the Kyiv Biennial, 2015. Her recent archival projects include Corridors of Conflict Abkhazia 1989-1995, 2019, Literature Museum, Tbilisi, and Missing Monument website, 2020.

Ana Gzirishvili (1992 Tbilisi, Georgia) is an artist based in Tbilisi. Ana is a DAAD scholar and a graduate of Universität der Künste Berlin, New Media & Film Class led by professor Hito Steyerl.

Throughout her experimental practice, focusing on sculpture, installation, and video, Ana has worked in various mediums ranging from lens-based media to CGI, from poetry to the spoken word and reading performances. Her art practice often examines the in-between spaces and points of touching of objects, places, and narratives through disassembling and reassembling them both physically and contextually.

Tamo Jugeli (b. in 1994, Tbilisi) is a young, Georgian emerging self-taught artist born in 1994. During 2013-2017 she studied Journalism at David Aghmashenebeli University of Georgia and only started painting af- ter. Soon she became mentored by internationally renowned artist and writer, Gia Edzgveradze.

Paintings of Tamo Jugeli carry traces of unconscious impulses by its linear as well as color factures. An intuitive flow composed of simple elements of figures, colors and forms create complex and dynamic networks, which sometimes are transformed into shapes and sometimes are broken into abstractive signs. Each element stands on the frontier of a figurative or a plane deconstruction. Visual signs establish sculptural, fluid, spatial dimensions and attain their autonomy. We are witnesses to a game between transgration and sublimation, between the rational and the irrational.

Artworks, which have their own scale, space and limitless desire to break the boundaries can easily be read as topographic maps of brisk and irrational motion.

Nina Kintsurashvili (b. in 1992, Tbilisi) is a Tbilisi based interdisciplinary artist and painter who earned her BFA in painting from The Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and an MFA in Intermedia from The University of Iowa through Fulbright award.

Nina’s works have been exhibited in Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography (Mestia, Georgia), LC Queisser (Tbilisi, Georgia), E.A. Shared Space (Tbilisi, Georgia), Arco Madrid (Madrid, Spain), PS1 Iowa City, Levitt Gallery UofI (Iowa City, US), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NY,US), Everywoman Biennial (London, UK), Ekru Projects (Kansas City, US).

Keti Kapanadze (b. in 1962, Tbilisi) while still a student at the Art Academy in Tbilisi, she produced her first conceptual graphical and photo works in 1983, she was the first conceptual artist in Georgia in Soviet times. Since that time her works are part of the permanent exhibition of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the USSR at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, USA.

From 1990 to 1999 she worked abroad, supported by scholarships from the Sheffield City Polytechnic, the cca Contemporary Art Center, Glasgow, the BAK Swiss Federal Foundation, Berne, and the IAAB Christoph Merian Stiftung, Basel. She also won First Prize in Photography awarded by the ‘Open Society Georgia’ in 1997 in Tbilisi. She was also one of the editors of the Georgian art magazine ‘Signal’ which she helped launch in 1998.

In 2000 Keti left her country for Germany, supported by the Baumann Stiftung. In 2001, she was invited as Visiting Professor for the Painting Class a Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. In 2007 she was awarded a scholarship by Cité des Arts in Paris, Ministry of Science, Research and Culture, Paris, France. Her works are in important European collections, such as: Museum Bochum; Stuttgart State Gallery; Ministry of Culture, Stuttgart; European Patent Office, München; State Art State Gallery Göppingen; MMoma Moscow.
Today, Keti lives and works in Bonn, Germany.

Anna K.E. (b. 1986 in Tbilisi, Georgia) lives and works in Queens, New York. Anna K.E.’s practice investigates the body as agent and receptor in a technologically and physically mediated landscape; and the absurd nature of the creative act. Working across painting, sculpture, performance, and photography, K.E. mines the tension and humor of the body in space, and the ironies of social relationships and transactions.

Solo shows include Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany (2024) and the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2024). Recent solo and two person exhibitions include Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, Germany (2013, 2015, 2020, 2022); National Georgian Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia (2022); Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia (2022); Simone Subal Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2013, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021); The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE, USA (2020); Georgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany (2019); Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf, Germany (2018); Queens Museum, Queens, NY, USA (2017-2018); Primary, Nottingham, UK (2017); Sommer Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel (2016). Recent group exhibitions include Simone Subal Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2023); E.A Shared Space, Tbilisi, Georgia (2022); Oxygen Biennial, Tbilisi, Georgia (2021); Hardspace, Basel, Switzerland (2019); September Gallery, Hudson, NY, USA (2018); Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil (2018); Galerie Gisela Clement, Bonn, Germany (2018); Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany (2017); G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig, Germany (2016); The Kitchen, New York, NY, USA (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA, USA (2015); Kunstverein Wiesen e.V. Wiesen, Wiesen, Germany (2015); Kunst Raum Riehen, Riehen, Switzerland (2015). Anna K.E. represented Georgia at the 2019 Venice Biennale with her work REARMIRRORVIEW, Simulation is Simulation, is Simulation, is Simulation, 2019. The Kunstpalais Erlangen published a catalog of Anna K.E. and Florian Meisenberg’s collaborative practice titled Complimentary Blue, on the occasion of their collaborative solo exhibition at the museum in 2019. In 2012, Hatje Cantz published Anna K.E.’s first monograph entitled A well-to-do man is cruising in his fancy car when a small hen runs out on the road in front. K.E’s work is in the public collections of the Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf im Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany; the Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland; the Cologne Staatskanzlei NRW, Cologne, Germany; the Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany; and the Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels, Belgium.

Ema Lalaeva-Ediberidze is an exceptionally interesting and typical representative of the 1920s. She is one of the most ‘left-wing’ amongst the Georgian artists of the period. Her creative works reveal a sharp interest towards Western Avant-garde. As an exceptionally perseverant artist, maintaining a creatively active position, Ema addresses almost all of the Avant-gardist movements. However, the artist manages to build her own style and be uniquely original. Ema's work is central to the early history of the Georgian Avant-garde and essential to our understanding of Georgian Modernism.

Maia Naveriani (b. in 1966, Tbilisi) studied under Gia Edzgeveradze before completing her formal training at the Academy of Fine Arts, Tbilisi. Having moved to London, in 1989, she was nominated by Annely Juda Fine Art for the the Vordemberger Gildewart Foundation international prize in 1999, which she won.

Since then she has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions in both public and commercial spaces including Fordham Gallery, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London; Neues Kunstforum, Cologne; Museum Wiesbaden; Museum Bochum; Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund; Netwerk, Aalst; Cirius Art Centre, Cork; Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York and CoBra museum, Amsterdam. She also became a member of the group Everything is Alright founded by Gia Edzgeveradze, taking part in many performances in public spaces including Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Museum Bochum, Bochum and Museum Kunst Palatz, Dusseldorf. Maia Naveriani is represented in Germany by Galerie Voss, Dusseldorf.
The artist lives and works in Tbilisi and London.

Vera Pagava is a Georgian painter, engraver and designer, attached to the Second School of Paris. Figurative in her beginnings, her painting evolved in the early 1960s and took a more personal and demanding path, which led her to abstraction "experienced as a necessity", Vera Pagava was born in 1907 in Tiflis, now Tbilisi, Georgia, into a family of enlightened liberal nobility. Her father, George Pagava, was a lawyer and her mother, Alexandra Naneichvili, was a professor of literature. Her uncle, Guiorgui Naneichvili, was close to the artists and intellectual circles of the capital such as the painters David Kakabadze, Elena Akhvlediani and Lado Goudiachvili. In the 1910s, Georgia, then within the Russian Empire, was a bubbling cultural and political melting pot where avant-garde artists, poets and intellectuals mingled, including Mayakovski and the brothers Kirill and Ilia "Iliazd" Zdanevich. As a child, Vera Pagava was deeply imbued with the artistic and intellectual effervescence of this pre-revolutionary world. In 1919, the Pagava family left Georgia due to the state of health of the father. From 1920 to 1923, they lived in Berlin and Dresden, and they were very quickly integrated into the German artistic and intellectual community. Meanwhile, Georgia was overrun by the Red Army troops. The social-democratic government, in place since Georgia's independence had been proclaimed in 1918, was forced into exile in 1921. It was then a whole society, political and intellectual, which emigrated to Paris with the hope of a speedy return home. In 1923, the Pagava family joined the Georgian community in exile in France and settled in Montrouge. Apprenticeship years - 1920s-1930s Upon her arrival in France at the age of 16, Vera undertook an artistic training, first at the Preparatory School of Decorative Arts, then at the Arts and Publicity School where she was initiated into the techniques of engraving on wood and linocut, and at André Lhôte's Studio in 1929 where she studied sketching. in 1930, the Pagavas moved to 2, Cité Rondelet in Montrouge, a pavilion in which she lived all her life. The same year, a young Georgian in exile, Vano Enoukidzé, found accommodation with the Pagavas. This meeting would be the start of a faithful companionship and lifelong partnership. From 1932 to 1939, she joined the Ranson Academy, in the studio of Roger Bissière, on the advice of her friend, the painter Nicolas Wacker and Massier at the Academy. There she studied painting, both live model and fresco. There she met those who would become her most faithful friends; among them were Jean Bertholle, Maria Helena Vieira Da Silva, Arpad Szenes, Etienne Martin, Jean Le Moal, François Stahly, Elvire Jan, Charlotte Henschel, Guidette Carbonell and Roger Hilton. Interestingly, in the Vera Pagava archive is a whole set of correspondence between her and Roger Hilton. Importantly, the young art critic Jacques Lassaigne, in search of young talent, also attended the Academy.

Elene Shatberashvili is a Georgian painter currently based in Paris. She graduated for Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Art de Paris in 2019. She was in a four month post diploma residency program ASA in Hamburg (November 2020-march 2021), as part of collaboration between Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Art de Paris and HFBK. Since, she has been living and working between Paris and Tbilisi. Elenes work has been shown at the gallery Aigen-Art in Leipzig, at Tajan in Paris, at the gallery Perrotin, at MO.CO. museum in Montpellier, as well as in the shows organized by the Emerige Prize in 2020. She started collaborating with GB Agency with a duo show in February 2020 and has since participated in several group projects with them.

The self portraits as well as subjects linked to Georgia often appear in Elenes work. Her figurative paintings remain experimental and seek to enlarge its limits.Her realistic paintings are often followed by more abstract and geometric forms. This dynamic lets the artist explore not only plastic and pictorial language, but also different subject matters.

Tamuna Sirbiladze was born in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, on the 12th of February 1971, daughter of Vakthang Sirbildadze and Nunu Ghurchumelia. She started her life together with her elder sister Keti. Already in nursery-school in Lermontowstreet she loved drawing and painting and impressed her teacher so much that she organized an exhibition for the six year old.

In 1989, Tamuna graduated from high school in the Rustaveli-avenue.

From 1989 to 1994 she studied at the state-acadamy of art in Tbilisi, where she gained a degree. After moving to Vienna in 1997, she studied until 2003 at the acadamy of fine arts, where her teacher was Franz Graf. In 2003 she further extended her studies at the Slade school of fine arts in London.

In the meantime she had met the artist Franz West, whom she married in 2002, and with whom she collaborated on several art-projects and works until his death 2012. Her children Lazare and Emily were born in 2008 and 2009. Her last years she lived together with Benedikt Ledebur. Always very active, she was included in a group exhibition as soon as she moved to Vienna. Over the years she made a huge body of works encompassing installative works, videos, sitespecific projects and an enormous amount of paintings, which she exhibited in various exhibitions in Galleries and Museums all over Europe, like 2001 Plakatentwürfe with Gisela Capitain in Cologne (cooperating with Franz West), 2007 Inconcurrence with ColletPark Gallery in Paris, 2008 Painting and Elements with Jonathan Viner in London, 2010 Laszive Lockungen with Charim Unger in Berlin. In the last two years she not only participated in the groupshow artists and poets in the Secession in Vienna, curated by the artist Ugo Rondinone, and in the groupshow No man’s land of the Rubell family collection in Miami, but also had a lot of critical acclaim for two solo-shows in New York: Take it easy in Bill Powers’ Half Gallery and „Good enough“ is never good enough in James Fuentes’ Gallery. Her recent show at Almine Rech gallery in Brussels opened shortly before her death.

Nato Sirbiladze (b. in 1955, Tbilisi) after finishing school she continued to study in the Pedagogic Institute to become a teacher. In different periods she worked at the National Library, at the Institute of Management and as a school teacher. Sirbiladze never studied art and started painting at the age of 31. Her artworks are made on paper and several hundreds of them are painted in gouache and aquarelle.

Sirbiladze is an artist who has never been part of any artistic schools or groups. She has also rarely been mentioned in the narratives of the local artistic context and has continued her creative path independently. Until recently her representation in public spaces has been limited to a few occasions locally and abroad.