03 Mar 2014

First Georgian Video Art Archive

DESCRIPTIONS
Exhibition of Georgian Video Art

Since the 80s, Georgian art has undergone an evolution, which ran parallel to the predominant, hegemonic discourse of the socio-cultural reality. Within this context, it has created artifacts in various forms of media, which were novel to the social reality and circumstances of the respective time, but did not trigger any adequate analyses of these impulses. The political and economical conditions of the 90s, which marked the aftermath of the Soviet breakdown, complicated actions directed towards categorization and preservation as well.

Today, in the time of independence and re-orientation, the necessity of an archive, which is reminiscent and serves the mediation of knowledge of the beginning and development of the Georgian art movement, is unequivocal. Furthermore, it is the preliminary step towards a rethinking of the latter. With time passing by, the risk of these artifacts falling into oblivion or into irrelevance is steadily increasing, which is why the independent platform „Active for Culture' initiated the creation of the very first Georgian video art archive, which is being introduced through „Descriptions'.

By „descriptions' we often mean to refer to objective, plain truths. Georgian video art, which has widely developed in the undercurrent before establishing itself as a separate medium, offers us various descriptions – but from a very subjective and alternative point of view. Although a comprehensive contextualization might only be possible from a retrospective, the exhibition aims to compile and illustrate 23 years of Georgian video art – exemplified by audiovisual works from 21 artists.

This project is the first step of reconsideration of the respective material, which is crucial for the clarification of what we should call Georgian art history, which stages it has undergone, and ultimately, how it has shaped the cultural identity. The conduction of comprehensive research about Georgian moving image and video art as well as the setup of an archive, which up to today consists of more than 400 video works by 80 artists, can be considered the first stage of the project. On the one hand, this is due to the current presence of video art in the field of contemporary art and its evident feature of perceptive accessibility, on the other hand, the financial as well as material resources currently limit the venture to this stage.

Future plans include the constant update and further development of the online archive, the selection of video artifacts and their exhibition in various corners of the world as well as the print of a publication which approaches Georgian video art from a theoretical perspective.

Participants:
Ana Martiashvili / Ana Chaduneli / Gegi Khaburzania / Gio Sumbadze / Dimitri Tsutsqiridse / Vasil Macharadze / Tamar Maglapheridze / Tamar Chaduneli / Temo Javakhishvili / IARE / Iliko Zautashvili / Koka Ramishvili / Konstantin Mindadze / Koka Vashakidze / Levan Chogoshvili / Mamuka Japharidze / Niko Lomashvili / Niko Tsetskhladze / Nino Sekhniashvili / Sophia Tabatadze / Wato Tsereteli / + Documentary video material by Teona Japharidze

Curators:
Aleksi Soselia / Galaqtion Eristavi / Giorgi Spanderashvili / Tamar Muskhelishvili