Frieze London 2024
Presented artist Keti Kapanadze
Gallery Artbeat is pleased to present Keti Kapanadze's solo presentation for Frieze London 2024. As the first feminist artist from the Georgian art scene of the 1990s, Kapanadze has been a pioneer in conceptual art. This exhibition features a wall installation crafted from deconstructed flower tables, two aluminum wall sculptures, and three photography pieces, each embodying her unique integration of pseudo-scientific concepts and feminist discourse.
Central to the exhibition is a wall installation constructed from deconstructed flower tables. The installation features a kidney-shaped design, evocative of a fetal gesture, which transforms from a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional, rhizomatous network. This transformation symbolizes the emergence of new narratives and meanings, disrupting linear and hierarchical structures. The autonomous monumental symbols that emerge on the wall suggest a deconstruction of traditional knowledge systems, critiquing patriarchal structures by recontextualizing familiar forms into symbols of resilience and strength inherent in the feminine experience. The visual composition resembles chemical reaction blueprints, creating landscapes that evoke both humor and emotion and metaphoricallyaddress the micro- and macrocosms of human existence.
Kapanadze’s aluminum wall sculptures further the conceptual dialogue by abstracting molecularconnections, traditionally associated with scientific texts. These connections dissolve and reform into new spatial forms, reflecting the artist's critique of how physics and mathematics, historically dominated by patriarchal narratives, are reimagined through a feminist lens. The aluminum medium, often linked to industrial and patriarchal contexts, is reappropriated to signify a critique of traditional knowledge structures. In this space between meaning and materiality, Kapanadze constructs a feminist perspective that challenges conventional scientific imagery and emphasizes relationality and interdependence.
The artist’s photographic works, integral to this presentation, critically engage with image politics and ideals of beauty propagated by glossy magazines. Kapanadze’s photography confronts the manipulation of self-perception and public opinion, reflecting a nuanced understanding of social realities and their impact on individual identity. Her early 1990s photographic series, developed in Tbilisi, presents a distinctive style that oscillates between self-reflection and critical engagement with contemporary issues, embodying Kapanadze’s conceptual approach to art and utilizing photography as a tool to explore and challenge prevailing aesthetic and ideological paradigms.
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.