The topic of serial artworks of Nika Kutateladze relates to the daily life of a dying mountainous village in Guria and at the same time shares with us author’s creative approach to architectural transformations. Artist has researched objects of architectural landscape and their changes over the time in a village named Mitsieti. His artworks show the actual impact of everyday life events on architectural forms.

Nika Kutateladze generalizes the dysfunctional house from the village Mitsieti and actualizes its problem in a new context. His attempt to create a new spatial construction in Gallery Artbeat gives the spectator a possibility to rethink the space charged with new visual signs.

The author has been researching the village’s history of architectural landscape, daily rituals and environment. An abandoned house, which was submitted for dismantlement by the villagers becomes an object of interest for the artist and a source of inspiration. Kutateladze transforms steel pieces, which cover walls of village houses to protect them from damage into a new construction and signs in order to remind us of their former functional character. These signs may be read as a way of resistance against entropy of time and protection from natural phenomenon. It is worth remarking that the structure and steel pieces of this house also vanish by the hands of the villagers. The horrific process of depopulation creates a fatal image which touches the artist deeply and becomes the topic of his new project.

Nika Kutateladze was born in 1989, in Tbilisi. He studied on the faculty of Architecture at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts between 2007 – 2011. In 2013 he graduated an informal master’s course at the Centre of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi (CCA-T). The majority of the artworks comprise installations and sculptures, reflecting day-to-day consumerism and different environmental issues. His later artistic utterances challenge the transformative process of architectural spaces and urban environment, in general.

Selected solo and group exhibitions:

2019 - ‘Metamorphosis’, Art in Europe Now - The Fondation Cartier, Paris, France; 2018 - ‘To Protect My House While I’mAway’, Tbilisi Architectural Biennial, Tbilisi, Georgia; ‘Watermill on Former Pavlov Street’, Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Georgia; 2017 - ‘Minibus and Playground in My Old Apartment’ at Mitskevich Street 20, Tbilisi, Georgia; ‘Double Standards’, Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan; 2016 - ‘Wall, Coarse calico, Parquet’, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2015 - ‘AD HOC’, LA STATION, Niece, France; 2014 - FEST I NOVA 2014 - ‘OPUS MIXTUM’, Art villa Garikula, Georgia; 2013 - ‘Am I You’ - Gallery Container, Tbilisi, Georgia.

Photos by Tako Robakidze and Angus Leadley Brown