SELF-PORTRAIT BY THE MIRROR

ATINATI’S Cultural Centre presents the exhibition “Self-Portrait by the Mirror”,

curated by Ketevan (Keti) Shavgulidze.

The exhibition, which covers the period from the 19th century to the present day and brings together Georgian artists (as well as poets) of different generations, is the first retrospective of self-portraits created over the last century. The synthesis of expressions aspiring towards self-understanding is a unique opportunity to observe the hundred-year process of how the author is reflected in the world, and vice versa –environment in the image.

During the exhibition opening Andro Dadiani will present a review of poetic self-portraits from modernism to the present. Self-Portrait, as a kind of mediating art form, exists on the borders of the visible and the symbolic, the conscious and the personal/transpersonal unconscious. In the context of self-presentation, it offers an observation of the Self as subject-object and contemporary cultural phenomena, while at the same time includes a reflection on the creator through various experiences, as well as on the stranger – the “other” (or intangible “others”) embedded in it.

110 years after the creation of self-portraits by David Kakabadze (“Self-Portrait by the Mirror”, “Self-Portrait with Pomegranates”, “Self-Portrait in Gray Gown”), the exhibition presented at the National Gallery is dedicated to the significant, multi-layered and enigmatic artistic phenomenon of the self-portrait, which is considered not only as a form of personal self-reflection, but also as a symbolic embodiment of the artist’s contemporary era.

Event dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the A. Kutateladze Tbilisi State Academy of Arts.

Exhibition opening:

4 February 16.00

04.02.2023- 12.03.2023