from Sept 23, 2023 to March 30, 2024
TBC Concept
Marjanishvili, 7
Tbilisi, Georgia
Vera Pagava, Silent Cities
This major survey of the Georgian-born French artist Vera Pagava (1907-1988) brings together paintings, watercolors, and drawings from a body of work that centers on Cities and Architecture. Born in 1907 in Tbilisi, she later relocated to Paris, diversifying her mediums from oil paintings to textile designs and stained glass. Silent Cities spotlights her departure from figuration between the 1950s and 1980s.
The exhibition is curated by Nina Akhvlediani, co-organized by TBC and the Association Culturelle Vera Pagava - AC/VP. It is generously hosted and supported by TBC, in partnership with the Embassy of France in Georgia and the French Institute.
Silent Cities introduces to the public a number of works on loan from AC/VP and other collections, such as the set of paintings, also known as “silent architecture.” Pagava’s distinct abstract painterly style is evident in this body of work, some of which were initially included in exhibitions at Galerie Darial by Thamar Tarassachvili-Taly, a close confidant. Silent Cities also features archival records from Pagava's exhibitions at the same gallery.
Complementing the Architecture theme, the exhibit provides insights into historical documents and photographs detailing Pagava's major site-specific projects. These encompass her expansive fresco for the Vatican Pavilion at the World Expo in Brussels (1958) and an abstract triptych designed for the Telecom building in Dijon (1980). Silent Cities also highlights Pagava's urban representations and features a selection of books with Pagava’s representations of cities and architecture created in collaboration with poet and publisher Pierre Lecuire. From the 1970s forward, they had worked together on multiple projects, including “Pasargades” (1977) and “Metaphysical Poems” (1978). For each of these publications, Pagava created woodcuts and dry-point illustrations that harmonized with Lecuire’s poetic compositions.
The retrospective will be accompanied by a publication from Kona Books, designed by Timur Akhmetov, that includes Nina Akhvlediani’s essay “Point par point” and a poem by Pierre Lecuire, which he dedicated to Pagava in 1972. It also contains reproductions of Pagava’s sketches, a handpicked assortment from the AC/VP archives, and a specially commissioned Georgian rendition of "Disquiet", an essay by the Canadian author and poet, Lisa Robertson.
Curator: Nina Akhvlediani
Associated curators: Elisso Tarassachvili, Anna Tarassachvili (AC/VP)
Exhibition coordinator: Mariam Tsikaridze (TBC)
Exhibition display concept and design: Nina Akhvlediani
Graphic design: Timur Akhmetov
Typeface design: Timur Akhmetov, Sasha Kulikov
The exhibition is organized in partnership with the Embassy of France in Georgia and the French Institute.