Katalogpräsentation: 19.06.2010, 20.00 Uhr
Einführung durch Heinz Schütz
The monograph “Welcome Foam – Farewell Human” which our institution is going to present covers a large volume of art works and writings of Georgia born German artist, curator and critic Gia Edzgveradze. This publication will present the forceful dynamic of activity of this artist since he began to live and work in the West 1988 (during the period of 1988–1996 the artist was living in Munich). In 1994 – the book of this artist “Mind the Gap” published by Cantz won the golden medal, the prize of “Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher” for art and photography.
This publication sights three major stages in Edzgveradze’s artistic development – three long run key projects:
1. Series of large scale black & white paintings (1980–2002). In this innovative set of works Edzgveradze tried to sense and to create visual manifestations of the structure of human consciousness on the stage of its future development when signifiers are united into one vital cosmic dance and entirely left state of autonomy, hierarchy and subordination.
2. Space interventions and objects (1994–2008). This chapter includes images of Edzgveradze’s successful installations realized on Venice Biennale, Tate Gallery, Sprengel Museum, De Apple Foundation (Amsterdam), Museum of Contemporary Art (Budapest), Haus der Kunst (München) and also from other important state and private institutions. The over mentioned displays are large scale space sets with epic mood which try to put into visual form the universal paradigms from the history of knowledge.
3. Video and performance activities (1998–2008). This chapter will include (alongside with many others) widely known multi media project “The Bride” – where artist manifested the state of renunciation of individual being and his chance to dwell within a gap in between binary opposites.
Beside of the images of the displays, paintings and other results of the visual activities of the artist in this book are also included his studies within a critical thought. Many of the theoretical essays of Gia Edzgveradze included in this book were published different times in various art magazines and art exhibition catalogues. These writings show innovative view of the author on the updated problems in the cultural thought and have an explicit value within the general contemporary art discourse. One can find here drastic essays about radical cinema of Michael Haneke or Sacha Baron Cohen “philosophy of insult”, analytical reflections about problems of teaching of contemporary art and even purely ontological enquires. This book must be studied as a whole where gradually unfold different stages of human being’s active and uncompromised life throughout hope, ambition, experience, worry and relief. The three chapters of the trilogy Foam at the end of the book are wings which try to overpass the book itself and to make a journey much farer then any book can suggest.
The volume of publication includes 288 pages with 921 images (793 colour illustrations) and essays in two languages.
Thinking about attractive intellectual and visual qualities of this book our wish is to see you with us on the evening of the presentation of this publication, where artist will deliver a lecture and also will be screened his video piece “Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Beyond”.
