PICTURE LANGUAGES. PHOTOGRAPHIC ART FROM GEORGIA

One main aspect of the exhibition are the works of young photographers born in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They consistently work in coming to terms with the identity of their generation and the experimental handling of the medium of photography. In addition the exhibit provides insight into Georgia’s history of photography: with reproductions of the early artists Dimitri Ermakov and Alexander Roinashvili and the first female war photographer Nino Jorjadze.

Through this, the exhibition imparts impressions from the history and from modern life in Georgia – and as well various artistic positions of its contemporary photography. Guram Tsibakhashvili can be viewed as a photographic chronicler of soviet and post-soviet life in Tbilisi and other regions in Georgia. His images poetically reveal a society on the brink of survival and political ambiguity. Natela Grigalashvili documents the hardships as well as the simple joys of everyday life in Tagveti, her childhood-village. Her black and white photographs act also as memories of her time growing up. Beso Uznadze’s series of portraits of Georgians living in Tiblisi and London started before the 2008 Russian and Georgian conflict; the faces disclose the tension of the times. The rich hues of these portraits is further developed in his nude series “Delusion”: Working with digital techniques he brings an airy feel of Cubism into his photography. In a photo-journalistic essay Daro Sulakauri exposes the precarious existence of the aged infrastructure and the manganese industry’s environmental impact in the once booming mountain mining town Chiatura. Dina Oganova and Mariam Sitchinava, both born in the late 1980s consistently work in portraiture of their generation and coming to term with identity, using photo books and social media. Andro Eradze and Lado Lomitashvili inspect how society reacts to communal space using conceptual artistic tactics including film and installation. Koka Ramishvili scrutinises nature and possibilities of the photographic process: through different media he pushes the viewer to think about what is visible or hidden in the everyday world.

This comprehensive exhibition of Georgian Photography curated by Celina Lunsford, the Artistic Director at FFF, is part of the Guest of Honour Programme “Georgia – Made by Characters” of Frankfurt Book Fair 2018. Special events such as lectures, discussions and workshops with leading Georgian photographers, curators and experts are also planned. PICTURE LANGUAGES. PHOTOGRAPHIC ART FROM GEORGIA will be accompanied by a catalogue (German-English, 144 pages) published by Societäts-Verlag in Frankfurt am Main.