thea djordjadze: let me disclose the gifts reserved for age

Rat Hole Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works produced on-site in Tokyo by Berlin-based, Georgian artist Thea Djordjadze. On view from October 28, 2011 until January 22, 2012, the exhibition marks the first time for Djordadze’s works to be shown in Japan.

Born in Tbilisi in 1971, Djordjadze is best known for making sculptural installations that develop from an intuitive process of playing with objects and forms in space. She works with materials ranging from plaster and cardboard to glass, wood, metal, concrete, linoleum and foam to create amorphous constructions that hover between functionality, decoration and abstraction. At times these constructions resemble fragmented pieces of furniture – chairs, tables, beds, shelving – and they are often accentuated by their pairing with found objects such as carpets, photos or lamps. Presented together in site-specific installations, these works conjure uncanny, dispersed domestic spaces where the expected relations between body and habitus no longer cohere, triggering awareness and reflection in viewers of how things make us behave, and how we behave around things.

Trained as a painter, Djordjadze says that she approaches her installations as compositions of form, texture, depth and color. While neither explicitly about anything, nor intended as a particular commentary on historical archetypes of art and design, Djordadze’s works also develop from her deep interest in cinema, literature and architecture, beginning with her youthful attraction to the 1920s- and ’30s-era Constructivist buildings in her native Tbilisi. Occasionally surfacing in her works, such references provide only a momentary sense of orientation before quickly shifting beyond the comfort of customary knowledge or symbolism. In this way the works evoke the dynamic tensions between memory and forgetting that constantly occur in the generative process of the material world, and in the creative process of artistic experimentation.

Djordjadze also makes drawings, paintings and small sculptures, which are often incorporated in her installations. From 1999 to 2003, she was part of the Düsseldorf-based interdisciplinary collaborative group hobbypopMUSEUM. She has had solo exhibitions at international venues including the Common Guild, Glasgow; Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis; Kunsthalle Basel; and Kunstverein Nürnberg; and has participated in international exhibitions including “The New Décor” at Hayward Gallery, London; the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art; 9th Biennale de Lyon; and 50th Venice Biennale.