Georgian National Museum Exhibits Freedom-Inspired Art of Non-Conformist Artists

From November 5, Georgian National Museum Sighnaghi Museum presents the exhibition "Freedom-Inspired Art" of Non-conformist Artists: Avto Varazi, Otar Chkhartishvili, Temo Japaridze, Amir Kakabadze, Vatia Davitashvili, Avto Meskhi.

In the field of art, the statement of the term - Soviet nonconformist art is connected to Norton Dodge, American economist, Doctor of Philosophy of Harvard University. He is famous as one of the first collectors of Soviet unofficial art. Norton Dodge bought paintings of the artists in the 1960s and smuggled them out of the Soviet Union. In fact, he introduced to the West the art of the so-called Soviet underground, of which up to 20,000 artworks are preserved in his collection. Among them are the works of Georgian non-conformist artists.

The non-conformist movement in Georgia was featured fragmentary and spontaneous. The position of artists rejecting the official ideology established in the art field at that time caused outrage among the Soviet authorities. Therefore, they used all means to control and suppress the tendencies unfavorable to the regime in the arts: publications, exhibitions, reprimanding the authors, arresting and carrying out punitive operations against them. In such an atmosphere, the artist as a person had to choose among membership in the unions of the Communist Party, artists or academic oligarchy, creativity in the spirit of social realism, the service of the ruling ideology and creative freedom, identity and personal responsibility to the world. When the artist made a choice in favor of creative freedom and personal dignity, he would lose material privileges, public, social and legal guarantees, the kindness of the rulers, which, in fact, would lead him and his loved ones into the illegal space.

In the 1960s and 1970s, non-conformist artists - Avto Varazi, Otar Chkhartishvili, Temo Japaridze, Amir Kakabadze, Vakhtang (Vatia) Davitashvili, Avto Meskhi laid the foundation for unofficial art in Georgia, which marked the beginning of a new cultural era. 

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Avto Varazi (1926-1977) became almost a legend among artists and intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. It was his human and creative advantage that fueled the environment in which the unofficial art of post-war nonconformism flourished. Therefore, most of the Georgian artists who created unofficial art were more or less dependent on him. Avto Varazi was uncompromising in life and art. He used to easily escape from the clichés. His art expressed not objects but connections between them, he sought not colors but the metaphor of color. Avto Varazi was not only a great artist but also a great psychologist. In his portrait art, he delves into the drama of human loneliness and its deep existence. He was one of those whose lives and creations were merged. Avto Varazi died in March 1977, and in May of the same year his first solo exhibition was organized at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MOMA), where Varazi's famous work - "Bull's Head" is housed.

In the 1970s, Otar Chkhartishvili (1938-2006) established himself as a leading Georgian nonconformist artist. He participated in the 1974 in the so-called Bulldozer exhibition, as well as in the unsanctioned exhibitions arranged in the apartments of Alexander Glazer and Evgeny Rukhin. Otar Chkhartishvili's close connection with the Moscow Underground Artists' Circle and the purchase of his collage work "Elephant" by the Zimmerli Art Museum (New Jersey) in 1977 attracted the attention of the KGB. "From the late 1960s to the 1990s, I bore the cross of the anti-Soviet artist, and that's why my art became a weapon against totalitarianism and atheism..." - from the artist's autobiography.

The artworks of Temo Japaridze (1937-2012) are multi-layered, which, in addition to paintings, also include essays, prose and poetic works. The first exhibition of the artist was held in 1964 in the Assembly Hall of Tbilisi State University, and the official bodies equated it with "formalism and bourgeois art." In the Soviet Union, that was evaluated as a non-conformist art. Temo Japaridze's drawing-objects, assemblages, spatial objects or other signs featured to the conceptual art is considered as innovative in the Georgian fine art. Temo Japaridze's works constantly coexist with naivety, psychology, lyrical realism, existentialism, expressionism and, at the same time, conservative vision.

Amir Kakabadze (1941-2015) is a peripheral artist beyond social realism. After graduating from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, he continued to work as a theater and film artist for creating counter-values to Soviet social realism. In the 1970s, unofficial art was established in the so-called apartment exhibitions in Tbilisi. Amir Kakabadze is one of the artists of those exhibitions. Contrary to social realism, his art is characterized by formal pursuits, a kind of cultivation of the prose subject and the poeticization of the event.

Vakhtang (Vatia) Davitashvili (1946-2000) lived in Telavi. He studied at the Kiev Aviation University and became close to Sergo Parajanov, a film director living in Kiev at that time. Just from this period his passion for painting began. At Parajanov's he met with representatives of Soviet unofficial art and after returning to Tbilisi he started working in Avto Varazi's workshop. Vatia Davitashvili became a rebellious, free man. At first glance, naive, colorful and overcrowded still lives or landscapes create Davitashvili's uniquely personal artistic world.

Avto Meskhi (1946-2016) has been painting since childhood ... "I did not work the way people liked. I was explaining that it was a mountain and if nothing was painted below, it was necessary..." - the artist recalled. Avto Meskhi's internal protest against the political establishment at that time was very sharp, which led to his formation as a non-conformist. At the age of 13-14, he approached Avto Varazi and became acquainted with the Western art. The works of Avto Meskhi are distinguished by individual manners and are completely different even from the non-conformists of the Soviet period. He creates a "new reality" on the artistic surface using various techniques and materials. The artist's work reflects artistic methods and directions foreign to contemporary Georgian art, such as collage, Cubism, constructivism or abstractionism.

Exhibition Opening: November 5, 2021 | 17:00
Duration: 5 November, 2021 - 5 May, 2022
Venue: Sighnaghi Museum, 8, Rustaveli blind-Alley, Sighnaghi, Georgia