Solo exhibition of works by Uta Bekaia at ERTI Gallery, Super Humans, marking the gallery’s first collaboration with the artist.

Curated by Levan Mindiashvili

Uta Bekaia engages multiple artistic mediums, creating wearable sculptures, performances, and videos, where the borders between the disciplines are blurred, and the cultural references are synthesized in his own, personalized vision. With the background in fashion and costume making in the beginning of his career, Bekaia transformed these mediums into the main means, to approach human body and fully emerge into performances. Inspired by ancient mythology, fairy tales, Italian Baroque, and Georgian Dada, Bekaia with his exuberant, sculptural costumes, reinvents and re-stages long lost, never-before-documented rituals. Believing in genetical transferability of communal memory, Bekaia attempts to re-connect with the ancient knowledge and impregnate it with his own experiences and new meaning.

“Super Humans” marks Bekaia’s growing interest in his native Georgian folklore and mythology. Entire gallery space and the window will be transformed into immersive, experiential multi-channel video installation, reviving nine characters from different fairy tales, that had the biggest influence on the artist in his childhood. Loyal to his creative process, this time also, Bekaia hardly relies on actual texts or research; instead, he dives into his own memories and subconscious, reviving remnants of those memories, enriched with his own childhood imaginations and interpretations. As a result, the viewer encounters with almost completely new, re-interpreted characters, containing references not only from the Georgian folklore but also experiences from the western pop-culture, another source of Bekaia’s inspiration. Each character is interpreted by the artist himself and carries very personal, almost symbolical meaning for him. This is Bekaia’s attempt to re-connect with his childhood dream to encounter with the Superman (Übermensch). Sound for the video is also created by the artist, reviving memories from ancient folk songs, Mengrelian spells (the region of Georgia where he is from) and summers in the country side. Along with the videos Bekaia created nine hand embroideries of the Super Humans, where the playfulness of the children coloring books are merged with his widely explored and beloved craft.