Tbilisi Art Fair 2022

Presented artists: Tamar Botchorishvili, Tamo Jugeli, Keti Kapanadze, Anna K.E., Nika Kutateladze, David Meskhi, Maia Naveriani, Nato Sirbiladze, Zhanna Kadyrova.

For Tbilisi Art Fair 2022 Artbeat is proud to present a group show by Tamar Botchorishvili, Tamo Jugeli, Keti Kapanadze, Anna K.E., Nika Kutateladze, David Meskhi, Maia Naveriani, Nato Sirbiladze and ​​​​Zhanna Kadyrova.

This exhibition is an observation, concentrating on problems that will expand understanding the place of portraiture in contemporary art and attempt to pose questions around this topic. What is essentially the place of portraiture in contemporary art?  What Is Portraiture in the socio-cultural Context and what is a role assignment currently? Represented works focus on ‘portrait’ context, identity problems, and social issues. In the present state of affairs maybe something disappeared in the ‘portrait’ from the postmodernist perspective.  In the image there may not be a human face at all, all that remains are the indirect presence of a person, traces of their stay or an idea related to them.  Historically, the portrait has always been understood as a ‘double mirror’ artistic representation of a being, in which a face displays the likeness, personality, and even the temper of the person. With technological progress and the extension of social media capable of immortalizing reality with extreme immediacy that have put artists under question, maybe we don’t need artists to tell us what somebody looks like? In the digital era when each of us is a self-portrait’s creator, we symbolically discard artist’s intercession service.

Tamar Botchorishvili’s artworks represent an attempt of self-reflexion and self-understanding. Graphic drawings and objects created by combination of different materials and techniques tell the story of past experiences, drama and unexpected future.
Artworks include small-sized sculptures and drawings. On the one hand, these artworks represent cheerfulness and a playful (toy like) aesthetics but on the other hand, they express topics like: family and society, body and sexuality, death and subconscious.

The works take form from personal and collective experiences and are changing according to the meaning of different narratives. They speak about fundamental issues that dominate on all levels of society and transform dramatic contexts into cheerful playing forms.

Tamo Jugeli 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.

Selected solo and group exhibitions:
2022 – Art Athina Art Fair, Athens, Greece; ‘Solitaire’, Polina Berlin Gallery, New York, USA; ‘Random Order’, Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2021 -  NADA Miami Art Fair, Miami, USA; Art Cologne Art Fair, Cologne, Germany; ‘Digital Natives’, TBC Concept, Tbilisi, Georgia; ’Limen’, Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography, Mestia, Georgia; 2020 - Art Cologne Art Fair, Cologne Germany; ‘Unnamed 2020’, Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2019 - NADA Miami Art Fair, Miami, USA; The Institut für Alles Mögliche, artist residency, Berlin, Germany; 2019 - Handler - John Riepenhoff, Gallery ArtBeat, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2019 - Tbilisi Art Fair 2019, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2019 – ‘You Know What?! I don't Have a Good Feeling about Cakes Around Here’, Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2018 - Art-Villa Garikula, artist residency, Garikula, Georgia; Archetypes, Art Up - Street Gallery, Batumi, Georgia.

Keti Kapanadze was born in Tbilisi in 1962 . 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 Staatsgalerie State Stuttgart, and the Museum Bochum. Today, Keti lives and works in Bonn, Germany.

Anna K.E. was born in 1986 in Tbilisi, Georgia. K.E. attended the famous Vakhtang Chabukiani classical ballet school from 1995-2000, and in 2000 K.E. moved to Germany. In 2002 at 15 years old K.E. became one of the youngest students ever to attend the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart. In 2004, she moved on to one of the most respected art schools in Germany – the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf – where she received her diploma degree as well as Meisterschülertitel with professors Georg Herold and Christopher Williams in 2010.

During and after her studies Anna K.E. received numerous awards and prizes including the Rotary Club Scholarship 2007; the Audi Art Award 2008 for progressive performance; the ISCP artist residency 2009, NYC; and the Herbert Zapp prize for young art 2012. In 2010 after finishing her studies in Germany K.E. moved to New York to attend the ISCP International Studio & Curatorial Program, with the financial support by the German government (DAAD Scholarship; NRW Travelscholarship; Kunststiftung NRW). Since completing the program, K.E. lives and works in both NYC and Berlin.

Anna K.E. is represented by the New York based Simone Subal Gallery, and has had solo shows there in 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2022 and by the Berlin based Galerie Barbara Thumm with solo shows in 2013, 2015 and 2020. The galleries regularly exhibit her work at local and international art fairs including Frieze New York, Art Basel Miami, Armory New York, ARCO Madrid, LISTE Basel, and ZONAMACO Mexico, among others.

Anna K.E. had her first institutional solo show at the Queens Museum in 2017, and has also shown at institutions such as The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, De (2020); Kunstpalais Erlangen, Germany (2019); Queens Museum, New York, USA (2017-2018); Primary, Nottingham, UK (2017); The Kitchen, NYC (2015); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2015); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, USA (2015); The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL, USA (2012); and The III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia (2012); Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany (2011); Museum K21, Düsseldorf (2010); Cobra Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009); and Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany (2009).

In 2019 Anna K.E. represented Georgia at 58th Venice Biennale. 'REARMIRRORVIEW, Simulation is Simulation, is Simulation, is Simulation...' was curated by Margot Norton.

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…”.

Nika Kutateladze was born in 1989, in Tbilisi. He studied on the faculty of Architecture at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts between 2007 – 2011. In 2013 he graduated an informal master’s course at the Centre of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi (CCA-T). The majority of the artworks comprise installations and sculptures, reflecting day-to-day consumerism and different environmental issues. His later artistic utterances challenge the transformative process of architectural spaces and urban environment, in general.

Selected solo and group exhibitions:
2019 - ‘Metamorphosis’, Art in Europe Now - The Fondation Cartier, Paris, France; 2018 - ‘To Protect My House While I’mAway’, Tbilisi Architectural Biennial, Tbilisi, Georgia; ‘Watermill on Former Pavlov Street’, Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Georgia; 2017 - ‘Minibus and Playground in My Old Apartment’ at Mitskevich Street 20, Tbilisi, Georgia; ‘Double Standards’, Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan; 2016 - ‘Wall, Coarse calico, Parquet’, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2015 - ‘AD HOC’, LA STATION, Niece, France; 2014 - FEST I NOVA 2014 - ‘OPUS MIXTUM’, Art villa Garikula, Georgia; 2013 - ‘Am I You’ - Gallery Container, Tbilisi, Georgia.

David Meskhi (1979, Tbilisi) completed his photography degree at Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film University in Tbilisi in 2005. Early in his career he worked as a photographer for the main Georgian cultural magazines and his artworks were presented in the collection of the Georgian House of photography. After his first Solo show he co-directed an award winning documentary-”When the Earth Seems to be Light”, which is based on his photographs. His works have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including a solo presentation in Paris Photo in 2019, the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt, the Braunsfelder Family Collection in Cologne, the Calvert 22 Foundation in London, the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, and the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest, Kunstverein Freiburg and the Biennale de la Photographie de Mulhouse. David Meskhi lives and works between Tbilisi and Berlin.

Maia Naveriani 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.

Nato Sirbiladze started painting at the age of 31. Her artworks are made on paper and several hundreds of them are painted in gouache and aquarelle. She was born in Tbilisi, after finishing school she continued to study in the Pedagogic Institute to become librarian. In different periods she worked at the National Library, at the Institute of Management and as a school teacher. Nato Sirbiladze’s paintings were included in a catalogue of ‘Pirosmani –Muse of painters’ together with other famous artists, which was published in 2005. For years she participated in various exhibitions including at foreign countries: 1995-2004 Gallery Graph Haidelberg; 2000-2007 – National Library of Parliament of Georgia; 2013 – The Literature Museum; 2014-2015 – Group exhibition, Folk Center; 2015 – Project of Maia Ghogheliani ‘Days with Me’.

Zhanna Kadyrova was born in 1981 in Brovary, the city in Kyiv region, Ukraine, where she currently lives and works. She graduated from Taras Shevchenko State Art School and received the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award, the Sergey Kuryokhin Modern Art Award for Public Art, the Grand Prix of the Kyiv Sculpture Project (all 2012) as well as a Pinchuk Art Centre Special Prize (2011) and Main Prize Winner (2013).  Her works have been extensively exhibited worldwide, recently at the M17 Contemporary Art Centre, Kyiv (2021), the Shanghai International Sculpture Project JISP, Shanghai, the Ukrainian Institute in New York (2020). She participated at the 58th, 56th and 55th Venice Biennale, respectively in 2019, 2015 and 2013. Kadyrova's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at Centre Pompidou and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Bureau for Cultural Translations, Leipzig, the Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria, the Ludwig Museum, Budapest, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Museum of Modern Art in Poland and the Pinchuk Art Centre (2012, 2013) in Kyiv, where her first major retrospective will be held in 2023.