First Exhibitions of Georgian Modernist Artists
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18688/aa200-3-39Keywords:
exhibitions of Georgian modernist artists of the early 1910s and 1920s, avant-garde art, Niko Pirosmani, Ilya Zdanevich, Kirill Zdanevich, Lado Goudiashvili, David Kakabadze, Tiflis, self-presentation of artAbstract
The article, based on an extensive literary and artistic material, is devoted to the study of the personaland group exhibitions of the first Georgian modernists. This research helps to understand new processes that took place in the visual art of Georgia in the 1910–1920s. It demonstrates that exhibitions, cultural and artistic activities had a huge impact on the visual culture of Georgia in the 1910s, the period of Independence (1918–1921) and the decades to come. Particular attention is paid to the first public exhibitions of Georgian modernists in multicultural Tiflis. In the early 1910s Tiflis turned into a zone of creative experiment, where new aesthetic ideas of the most radical kind were born. The article outlines the role and significance of Russian and Georgian futurists, who “discovered” the art of Niko Pirosmani in 1912 and organized his firs texhibitions. Leaders of the “left art” in Georgia were brothers Kirill and Ilya Zdanevich. The very first public exhibitions of Georgian modernists were in private apartments, halls or spontaneously assembled shows inartistic cafes. These exhibitions reflected two issues that were of major importance for the young Georgian artists — they wished to become a part of the European culture and to preserve their national identity.
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