From Pirosmani to Bassiani. The talk with Irena Popiashvili (Free University of Tbilisi)

The talk will feature the images of young Georgian artists and will explore how the idea of entertainment changed from the era of Pirosmani paintings to contemporary electronic music scene in Tbilisi. 

The 21st century Georgian artists, almost completely break form the local tradition. They are choosing their cultural and visual references through the contemporary pop culture. Their visual education happens via Internet, via computer screen, accessing the information beyond our borders and discovering other ways of doing things. For them, everything is available at once, on the screen, with no time evolution as explained in art history, neither following traditional cannons of good and bad. This break is not necessarily generational, but more educational and practice based. The 21st century generation simply re-appropriates what is there. These artists incorporate fragments of local visuals in collaboration with hues of cultural references from real and virtual travels from around the world.

Irena Popiashvili, is a founder and dean of School of Visual Art Architecture and Design School VA[A]DS at the Free University of Tbilisi. She is a curator and gallerist who after spending almost 20 years in New York moved back to Tbilisi to use her NY art world experience and raise new generation of artists.