Georgia on my mind – Tbilisi

Nicholas Reynolds

Early last Thursday morning groups of protesters began to assemble on the steps of the Georgian parliament building in the capital city of Tbilisi protesting the delay of presidential elections by the sitting president, Mikheil Saakashvili until next fall. Hours later, the first contingent of European artists, writers and graphic designers arrived in the city in anticipation of Tbilisi 4: Everyday is Saturday, the fourth in a series of annual events organized by Swiss curator Daniel Baumann in collaboration with AIRL in the Georgian capital. Throughout the week, crowd in front of the parliament building grew steadily, while the events organized around the show continued undeterred with a series of films screenings at the artist-run Cumberto Space, including screenings of works by Thomas Bayrle, Cyprien Gaillard, Octavio Cortázar, Frederick Wiseman, and Polish punk, where the audience seemed completely unconcerned with the mounting dissent on the streets.

As the week progressed, tension built as the size of the crowd in front of parliament grew steadily. A book launch for Bettina Funcke`s Pop Oder Populus went of without hitches on Wednesday evening, but the following morning, tensions between the protesters the authorities reached a head as hundreds of police descended upon the central Rustaveli Boulevard in bright yellow rain coats and riot control gear. The smell of aggressive tear gas filled the air around the city`s central Freedom Square for the remainder of the afternoon while preparations for the centerpiece of a week of events, an exhibition featuring work by Baumann`s signature blend of mainstream art world celebrities and local talent continued just a few blocks away. This year`s exhibition, included works by Richard Wright, Wade Guyton, Albert Oehlen, Georges Mathieu, Josef Strau, Christian Kobald, Vlado Alonso, Ei Arakawa/Sergei Tcherepnin/Stefan Tcherepnin, and Black Noise as well as Georgian artists Levan Chogoshvili, Marika Asatiani and Georgia`s own international art star, Andro Wekua as well as works and a Used Future publication by the Georgian collective Lott (Elene Naveriani, Gago, Giorgi Marr, Melano, Vajiko) and Swiss artists Emanuel Rossetti, Tobias Madison and Dan Solbach.

Throughout the city, flare ups continued throughout Thursday afternoon as the police were gradually replaced by a huge military deployment as the government announced an official state of emergency. Despite the news, as the show opened, that the opposition television station had just been shut down by the national police, Tbilisi`s small but loyal art community showed up in droves for the opening, including the director of Cumberto space, Wato Tsereleti, who arrived with a black eye following an altercation with the police en route to the opening. The beer ran out an hour into the opening, owing to the interruption in the supply chain following a week of demonstrations, but the party continued until an impromptu dj battle was cut short by the rumors of a midnight curfew. In the taxi home, Spike Quarterly editor Christian Kobald asked the driver what exactly the protests were about, his response, “choice between big shit and bigger shit.”

Friday morning brought calm to the city just in time for an animated round table discussion on the state of contemporary art in Georgia that quickly turned to the question of the relevance of art in the face of such political instability. Following the roundtable, the contingent headed up into the hills south of the city in a caravan of taxis for a ground-breaking ceremony for the new Tbilisi Center for Contemporary Art. Construction of the Center, designed by Los Angeles-based artist Justin Beal, is scheduled to begin next fall in the burgeoning Tbilisi Heights neighborhood. In the meantime, the site, currently little more than an abandoned gas station, is home to temporary installations by Wade Guyton, Emil Michael Klein/Gela Patashuri, Rita Vitorelli, and Grand Openings. As snow began to fall in the mountains above, a champagne toast marked the very cold and rainy end of a week of events that have become a new fixture on Georgia`s cultural calendar. As the crowd huddled together to stay warm, Georgian art historian Mzia Chikhradze reminded us that under the current state of emergency, it was illegal for more than ten of us to be gathered together in public. Back downtown, the streets were nearly empty save for the large military vehicles barricading the major streets leading into the city center. Rumors circulated on Friday morning that all the feeds of international news would be blocked from airing on Georgian television for the next two weeks.