Kunsthalle Zürich just opened a retrospective exhibition of Georgian artist Levan Chogoshvili. It's Levan Chogoshvili's largest to date. Levan Chogoshvili is among the most important Georgian artists of his generation. In this video, the artist guides us through the exhibition and talks about his art and his life.
Levan Chogoshvili was born in 1953. He lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. Since the 1970s he had created an extensive body of work in Tbilisi which incorporates painting, drawing, film and sculpture. Central to this work is the question of history: how it is essential – in general, but particularly for Georgia. For some two centuries in the case of Georgia, the telling or recording of history has been continually under pressure; history is continually expunged or corrupted, equally artists like Chogoshvili bring it back to life and render it visible. In his series Destroyed Aristocracy (1970-1985), for example, he created a new form of imagery, one which was based on the family photographs that were hidden for decades, because their existence could have been life-threatening for whoever possessed them.
Chogoshvili's art, which was prohibited in the Soviet Union until well into the 1980s, grapples with this erasure. It resists ignorance and stands up against amnesia. For these and many other reasons Chogoshvili is very highly regarded by the younger generation of Georgian artists, as an exemplar, teacher and their selfless supporter.
The exhibition runs until May 25, 2025, and runs concurrently to another solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich, Vijay Masharani (video coming soon).
Levan Chogoshvili. Solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich. Zürich (Switzerland), February 7, 2025.
Levan Chogoshvili was born in 1953. He lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. Since the 1970s he had created an extensive body of work in Tbilisi which incorporates painting, drawing, film and sculpture. Central to this work is the question of history: how it is essential – in general, but particularly for Georgia. For some two centuries in the case of Georgia, the telling or recording of history has been continually under pressure; history is continually expunged or corrupted, equally artists like Chogoshvili bring it back to life and render it visible. In his series Destroyed Aristocracy (1970-1985), for example, he created a new form of imagery, one which was based on the family photographs that were hidden for decades, because their existence could have been life-threatening for whoever possessed them.
Chogoshvili's art, which was prohibited in the Soviet Union until well into the 1980s, grapples with this erasure. It resists ignorance and stands up against amnesia. For these and many other reasons Chogoshvili is very highly regarded by the younger generation of Georgian artists, as an exemplar, teacher and their selfless supporter.
The exhibition runs until May 25, 2025, and runs concurrently to another solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich, Vijay Masharani (video coming soon).
Levan Chogoshvili. Solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich. Zürich (Switzerland), February 7, 2025.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00When I was a student and when I was thinking what to do,
00:29what will be interesting and actual at that time, it was 70s, beginning of 70s in Soviet
00:38Union and of course the contemporary art was forbidden and Christian art was forbidden
00:51and modernism art also was forbidden and so I was thinking what to do and then I understand
01:02that these old photos, family photos, they were also banned and nobody can show it.
01:11People were afraid to show their family photos like in China in 60s but in our country it's
01:21happened in 30s and 20s and so I feel that when I paint from these old photos because
01:31I cannot show the photos too, I feel that I am doing something good. Art for me is always to
01:46defend somebody, to maybe to speak or think about a hero who died or epoch which is finished and so
02:00Georgian nobility and of course I mean spiritual aristocracy. I wanted to say that the first
02:12picture I did it was poor Georgian farmers standing under somewhere and then I understand
02:23that the government don't like to show that something, that Georgia had a nobility,
02:33that there was some aristocratic spirit in dancing, in polyphonic songs of Georgia,
02:41in very beautiful Christian art and frescoes and icons and I understand that everything what is
02:51forbidden is art in this country. So I made such a series of pictures from old family photos,
03:00the people who were there, they were mostly killed and arrested in 20s and 30s and so
03:10the photo was also, you know, it was connected with avant-garde, it was documented and government
03:23did they don't like photography too. So I did this series and I call it destroyed aristocracy
03:33because at that time in Soviet Union it was even title was very against the dictatorship.
03:43So when I can show them only in 1985 in Gorbachev time, before it was dangerous and impossible
03:56and but at that time when I showed them it was a little bit like a shock because nobody did
04:04such art before.
04:09On this wall are the part of this pictures, they are very old, they are done in 70s
04:17and maybe because it is a little bit interesting as art was against the dictatorship.
04:25So
04:42you know two or three exhibitions I made in the flat of my friends, not official exhibitions,
04:50it was a little bit dangerous but not so much like in Stalin time of course. Anyway it was
04:56a little bit dangerous but in 1985 we didn't know that so-called perestroika begins but
05:05we feel that something is changing and I made such half-official exhibition in
05:12Tbilisi, my town and after this it became popular. I mean these pictures done from
05:24foreign photos became popular in Russia too because it was also about Russian empires
05:31of two, not only Georgian, about Georgian kingdom and so then only in 1990 I can
05:44go away from Soviet Union, I was in Paris and in France and then in 93 when it was time of
05:53terror and war in Georgia and there was no electricity and nothing for 10 years.
06:02Swiss people invite me in Basel and I was half year in Basel and then we made together
06:14with Christoph Merian Stiftung organized the exchange program and many Swiss artists,
06:21photographers were living in my little studio in Tbilisi and
06:26many Georgian young artists came here in Switzerland. So it was my connection with
06:34Switzerland and it was first country when a foreign country after this totalitarian
06:44regime I entered and I feel here in Switzerland like I am at home, I love this country because
06:54of this very much and they really helped me and other Georgian artists.
07:04So this exhibition for me is also very important because it is in Switzerland,
07:12it's in Kunsthalle and together with director and curator of exhibition Daniel Baumann we organize
07:25shows and exhibitions of Georgian avant-garde which was also closed and nobody knows about it
07:34for 50, 70 years and three exhibitions in New York, in Zurich and in Brussels
07:44shows that it's very interesting, international artists were in Tbilisi
07:51at that time beginning of 10th and 20th century and so I am very thankful that Daniel Baumann
08:03organized these exhibitions about Georgian art, I mean modernism.
08:34You know when I was in first time in 93 in Switzerland one newspaper
08:49asked me now that now everything is all right in former Soviet Union and I answered that no,
09:00it's everybody was speaking that now everything is finished and so on but
09:05I remember I told them that no nothing is finished and everything will
09:12happen many terrible things again and so it happened and till today we are in big problem
09:21because we are a little old Christian kingdom surrounded with Muslim countries and then
09:28Mongolian and Russian empire and then Soviet Union and so it is always very difficult for us and
09:39it depends what will happen in big politics and with big countries and so
09:46today I think these pictures are actual again because nothing changed, the so-called censorship
09:58in Soviet Union also binds many things today, my pictures and all my works too
10:05till today and I can't show everything till today.
10:11Okay
10:15So
10:33well everything was banned before Picasso to say somehow and
10:46sometimes I get some magazines from West Europe or United States because my father was
10:55very well-known mathematician, he was member of New York mathematician society and
11:03so sometimes he gets some magazines from his friends mathematicians, they know that they
11:10could have nothing to read from new books and new magazines and so I somehow I saw what's
11:20happening in contemporary art but when I was child and school in my school but then I
11:30like very much Georgian or old Christian art, we have very beautiful
11:37art in caves like in Anatolia because Georgia is somehow the same area and
11:47in these caves monks of 6th century and 7th beginning from 7th century they paint
11:56very beautiful frescoes, Christian frescoes and I found that they are a little bit
12:03like contemporary art because no naturalism, no reality, only mystical and the form is
12:13the formation is the same even some cubism was there, it was funny of course and but very
12:20interesting but I mean very early Christian art because after 10th, 11th centuries it became
12:28very canonic, very high quality but anyway before it was very interesting like
12:35maybe a little bit like first Irish manuscripts or some
12:43other things like it. I used in my and so I decided to somehow to
12:52be in this tradition of old art and also to do something new and this deformation
13:02of these figures is coming from this old Christian art. A little bit I made this
13:14deformations like it was in our old frescoes. Of course it's also influenced from contemporary art
13:25too. There was such very famous Georgian avant-gardist Ilyas Danevich,
13:34one of the father of Georgian and not only Georgian, world avant-garde.
13:42He then became very famous in France too. He was there and he and his brother they had such a
13:51concept that they call it everythingness.
14:04So they said that today artists can work using everything, the history, old works, new,
14:14everything and somehow it was they were speaking about contemporary today's art but they speak it
14:27in 1914 and I was I know that so and I know this and I also want to
14:39combine everything like from this Danevich everythingness. So my still is very
14:46like there is everything old and new and not so old and so on.
15:09You know in 60s my older brother he was student at the time and he sometimes made some films
15:23and so he made some performance in Moscow and in but of course at the time nobody can
15:30say that it is art. He was just doing as a not official art. So from my childhood I somehow
15:41understand that I can do something like this but till 90s there was no camera, no video camera,
15:53nobody. These poor Georgian artists they have not they made some performances and actions but
16:00without camera. Of course in 70s there is one film which I did in 70s but it is not video
16:10camera and it is just I remade it from the old Soviet camera but anyway as a video art.
16:20The first camera I bought in Basel in black market and then I made some video films also
16:37when I made some performance and mostly this performance was also forbidden at the time I made
16:44the video from these performances. Here are three video works. One is very old from 1972
16:58another is called Georgia Millennium. Millennium in Georgia it was such performance little bit
17:08strange and against politics of that time. In Georgia was terror and terrible situation but
17:17people ambassadors and people from foreigners and United States they say it's big democracies there
17:26and I wanted to put some food and wine on coffins and invite ambassadors like they were.
17:39In there some parties they did the same but I wanted to put on coffins some
17:46a la fourchette as they said and to invite ambassadors but they told me I will be killed
17:53until I enter the National Art Gallery. So I wait till Millennium day exactly and then I made
18:04some spontaneous such performance. I went in one old where are the graves of many old artists
18:14place and asked this administration and the people who worked at it I invited ambassadors
18:22and we must put on coffins on your coffins this wine and some sweets and
18:32I did this performance it's here. It was also I couldn't show this information
18:42only in foreign countries I show it after several years and there is also one film about
18:54it's high mountain village where Christian and Muslim people are together very friendly
19:03it is border when it was Caucasian war in 90s and so it was such a place where people were living
19:14in danger and so we did with my friends this something like carpet but from sheep
19:26and it's called Teka in this and it is a very old tradition coming from Hittite and Sumerian times
19:36and this mountain woman to keep this tradition with singing and dancing and making this
19:45Teka and color it with natural for example the one which is here is done only from
19:55wine red wine or black wine how Georgian call it and so this is one film also here
20:08uh with this woman maybe it was the last time of this tradition when they did this artwork
20:17their artwork
20:32so
20:36then I can speak also about this picture which is called 1924.
20:44In 1924 Stalin already occupied Georgia and it was big terror already but in 1924 Georgian
20:58socialistic social democratic government which at the time were emigrants in France
21:06they organize little revolution wants to organize against Bolsheviks and but
21:17then it it became big terror against it and the secret service of Soviet Union
21:27kill many people very many people in every town every village after this Georgia changed as a
21:33country you know it was before it was another and after it became what is it what it is today
21:42and also it's interesting date because for example American historians today
21:53uh spoke and wrote books about that the last divorce between socialists and communists
22:03happened because of this Georgian 1924 year when it was terrible terror in Georgia
22:11against socialists too and so it was the date when at last the communist and socialist divorce
22:22when I was child my grandmother and she was my grandfather was doctor as a medicine doctor
22:30in one region when they killed people in the train women men children everybody they put in the train
22:39and shot them from guns outside and blood was coming for its famous story my grandfather was
22:48there and the grandmother when I was child told me that dogs were coming with the fingers of
22:55people and by the rings on this finger family recognized their family members
23:04and I used my childhood paintings in end of 70s beginning of 80s and made this picture as a
23:13like a program of this terrible years and time when aristocracy in Georgia was
23:23killed but not only aristocracy of course they kill workers and farmers and teachers and everybody
23:44here this w is written here no as I told you before in 90s 10 years in Georgia there was a war
23:59no electricity for 10 years no warm no salary nothing and my
24:07um parents at the time elder and elder brother they were scientists and they
24:15my mother was professor of Sanskrit and she had very interesting book about
24:22indo-germanic language and she proved that very old words of indo-germanic language are in very old
24:31Georgian um writings and it shows that in it was very important for indo-germanic scientists
24:46because they understand that because this the indo-germanic language was earlier in
24:54such places like Mesopotamia and Hittite empire and so on and so my mother was very old at the
25:04time and father who was mathematician he also wrote some dictionaries about mathematical for example
25:12six language dictionary of mathematicians and so and my brother too he's scientist and because
25:19there was no paper no salary no money nothing no food they wrote their scientists and very important
25:29scientist works on toilet papers it's real story and on tea very cheap tea papers and
25:39so once I used these papers toilet and tea papers as my work
25:50to show that it's real story it's interesting because it's coming from real story it's not
25:55not fantasy and there was a big exhibition in Tbilisi of Georgian and Swiss young artists and
26:05Daniel Baumann and Armleder was there and Uglansky one Swiss-Polish artists and
26:14he made some work about Warsaw his town and because of this beside I made this W as a
26:24Warsaw and war the word and also there is new etymology of Warsaw too
26:34so this work and Daniel asked me to do it again here.
26:53This work is you know the first professional artist in Georgia in 19th century was
27:12painter named Gabashvili he was uncle of my mother and he studied in Munich academy
27:24and in Soviet Union we everybody knows him as a realistic naturalistic academic artist so-called
27:36and only 10 years ago we found that in our in archive and museum that he was symbolist
27:44he was in Munich in 1990 and 1986 about and he made very interesting symbolic
27:57works at that time and many photos and it was very interesting that he paint many androgens
28:09so-called at the time it was such a fashion and many philosophers at the time
28:15spoke about androgens and artists German artists mostly and he had such kind of works and
28:24when I paint this picture it's a man and woman together because I begin to paint from woman and
28:31then it's also somehow connected with Polish art well it was it's not interesting why
28:41but then I called this prince androgen and dedicated to Gabashvili this first Georgian
28:49professional artist because for us it was new that he was after this modern is in Georgia
28:59turned from 1901 to 1990 yeah not 1890.
29:09So
29:27then this for example is abstract painting you know I paint this there is some
29:36this is like an object there is some tobacco pressed on this
29:44picture and I at that time I wanted it was end of 80s and I understand that this demonstrations
29:55and perestroika will finished with big blood and I wanted to show that it will be finished with
30:03this and I made a series of works not everything is exposed here but I it's one of such pictures
30:11here very abstract but indeed it's a little bit connected with Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva who
30:20spoke about the same things in 1920.
30:40When I was listening the American and European radio secretly in Soviet Union
30:47they spoke much about such art in beginning of 80s well to with irony to do something about
30:58Soviet communist dictatorship situation and at the time I understand that
31:08I call this work at first Venus and Mars. I want to show that Mars was communist leaders
31:17always very old always very ill but cruel and they liked little girls many reasons and
31:27there was also no erotics and only erotic was in French communist magazine because they cannot
31:36forbid it you know it's French artists communists they were even Picasso was communist before Hungary
31:45and before war in Hungary I mean and they so erotic was from French communist magazine and
31:56from one magazine from DDR East Germany and so I use this soft erotica the only erotica which was
32:10in Soviet Union from this magazines and this cruel old leaders and I made series of the works then
32:19in 90s I changed the name and call it Venus and Marx but it's the same.
32:24...
32:47Well I want to say about my exhibition that at first I am very thankful for
32:55Daniel Baumann the curator and my friends and many curators and people art people in Switzerland I
33:09want to I am very thankful for this country as I told before and I want to say that because
33:20of the reason what maybe it's interesting my exhibition is that it shows how art was forbidden
33:31in that time when and how artists were fighting against this maybe because of this this is
33:45interesting it shows a way how we were fighting against such forbidden art things.
34:15...