The War and Towards the West

(Abstract)

 

No matter how cliché it may sound: 80s-90s generation, responsible for 90s art, is a cohort subconsciously influenced by MTV, Polaroid hues and David Bowie singing ‘Heroes’ near Berlin wall. The main catch, for artists, was always to feel the respective impulses and innovative experiences with respect to an ongoing era. So, while discussing Georgian contemporary art, despite Soviet isolation, we always talk about people who began exploring new media, creating new visual language; just like the first MTV work, ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ predicted for the whole planet.

Georgian art of the 90s is a hybrid. It is a fusion of prehistory, post-soviet independent reality and interaction with the Western part of the world. It grows its roots from the collapse of the Soviet Union and proceeds to evolve throughout the first years of liberated Georgia, alongside numerous episodes of war and peace. Exactly this so-called amalgam of experiences led to generating a unique context, as well as a signature means of expression. 

I simply titled this monograph ‘The War and Towards the West’, which emphasizes the significance of an underground art scene activities and the ultimate necessity to survive civil and ethnic oriented conflicts. The scene encompassed music, poetry, visual arts, alternative fashion, etc. However, the monograph fully belongs to a well-known new wave of artists, ‘Marjanishvili’, that goes hand in hand with the newest history of Georgia. Members occasionally held performances and demonstrations in the streets, underground passages, apartments and studios. Their conceptual art served as a boycott to traditional exhibition spaces but they still exhibited artworks there (in a significantly distinctive manner), which made an intangible conflict even more perceivable for the viewer.

Soviet pseudo art-institutions did not consider ‘Marjanishvili’ as a part of an art world but as soon as these establishments were ruined, the group started their journey once again, directing it all towards the Western values. Several important international projects were conducted, and Georgia became a subject of inspiration and research for the Western countries.

Artists of the 90s considered themselves to be the successors of the 10s-20s Georgian modernism. They were guided by similar theoretical values, trying to disregard the ‘iron curtain’ and seek natural and independent ways of discovering a visual language that worked well for their context. The 90s visual art was minimalistic, drawing more attention to an exhibition space rather than the anatomy of an artwork. That is why it is non-viable to analyze works of that era without background information. Niko Lomashvili’s diptych – ’14 Shots’ is a clear exception, which can be mediated as a 90s symbol or even as a major illustration for this monograph

Teona Japaridze, 2021