GEORGIA TODAY continues its series on artists in its With Respect series’ in collaboration with BI Auction.
The project ‘Cultural Heritage of Georgia from private Collections’ is an initiative that Baia Gallery has undertaken to study and popularize pieces of art held in private collections. These items are often rare in an artistic, style, or epochal context: to extricate these items from the hidden area, to study them, exhibit them, and popularize them, is an essential condition for research into Georgian culture.
Contemporary Art is the group of artists who have been active between the last two decades of the 20th Century and today.
Baia Gallery, since its inception, has presented and organized exhibitions of many exceptional Georgian artists. Among them are Merab Abramishvili, and Irakli Parajiani.
Irakli Parjiani has played a major role in Georgian art. He was part of a group of artists who revived Georgian art and whose opposition to Soviet ideology, censorship, and national identity rekindled interest in religion, aristocratic legacy, and nationality. Parjiani, in particular, was inspired by the tradition of Georgian Fresco Painting.
Born in Mestia – a mountainous region in Georgia famed for its distinctive style religious art – the artist is a descendant from medieval Latali Parjiani painters. The artist’s signature style of painting is arguably a result of this deeply ingrained genetic knowledge.
Parjiani became a member of the Tbilisi Anthroposophist Circle in 1978 and was influenced by their ideas. The artist was encouraged to explore the spiritual world and explored religious themes, often returning back to the same subject. I find it more important to focus on one subject and its deep conceptualization and perception than to move quickly and vary.”
Parjiani reinvents Christian iconography, giving it a new place in contemporary art. The artist uses Christian color symbolism to approach color from a philosophical perspective. Parjiani uses white to express a variety of emotions. White is a symbol of purity and chastity, but also of holiness and divinity. In traditional fresco paintings, gold represents these attributes.
Parjiani worked in Berlin for one year after moving there in 1989. The Berlin Cycle, which was later named after him, was completed one year before he died. It is considered to be the culmination of Parjiani’s career, and a perfect example of his understanding, perspective and experiences of the universe. The cycle is characterized by religious themes, landscapes and abstractions. Parjiani, by this time, had already painted a number of portraits, illustrated Goethe’s Faust and Homer’s Odyssey. She also illustrated Galaktion Tabidze’s poetry and various Georgian and German fairy tales and myths. The Metaphysical Landscape is a part of the overall cycle. It’s hard to understand the composition; the objects appear to be reflected on the water without their weight or physicality. The canvas reflects the majestic calmness and purity of a snowy scene, as well as a soul that is untainted. This is the mysterious serenity that exists; everything has become torpid in anticipation of resurrection.
Baia Gallery has organized more than 20 exhibitions of Parjiani’s works. They have also produced three catalogues and located over 100 of his undiscovered works in private collections. Baia Gallery will curate an exhibition in 2021: “Irakli 2 Baia Tsikoridze Ed., IrakliParjiani: Painters, Graphics, Tbilisi 2011”. Parjiani & Niko Pirosmani at The Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery. The exhibition featured 80 works by Irakli Parjiani (paintings and graphic works as well as illustrations), which were drawn from private and museum collections. About 30 of the works were displayed for first time.
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Baia Gallery, an art gallery in Tbilisi Georgia, specializes in modern and contemporary art. Since its founding, the gallery has dominated the Georgian art market with its highly sought-after works by leading artists, historical scholarship and insightful market analyses. Baia Gallery was founded in 1992 by Baia Tsikoridze in post-Soviet Georgia. It is the first private institution in this field.
The gallery’s establishment is connected to events like wars and crises. It is paradoxical that the gallery began working in conditions and at a time unsuitable for such an institution.
There was a civil conflict in Tbilisi, and a war in Abkhazia was raging. The war, the fire, the crisis, and the survival impulse strangely made it possible to set up the Orient Gallery (now Baia Gallery) when, in an old part Tbilisi in the abandoned Chardin street, the two-story house was found and they began working under conditions that were unimaginable for a museum or any other institution. In those circumstances, a few factors made it possible. The first was the mutual desire for collaboration between the gallery and artists. Since its founding, the gallery has worked in two main directions. Cultural heritage from private collections, and contemporary art. This means that the gallery operates in the primary and second spheres of art market.
Baia Gallery, Ingorokva St., Tbilisi. Baia Gallery Razmadze St., Tbilisi.
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