Modernism and the Georgian Avant-garde in the Early 20th Century

In the first two decades of the 20^th century, European modernist movements found a strong echo in Georgia. Local poets and artists adopted the new trends in European art and literature. Symbolism and expressionism became a source of new artistic experiments.  The “discovery” of the primitive painter Niko Pirosmani in 1912, promoted by the Georgian-Polish brothers Kirill and Ilia Zdanevich, added to the development of Georgian Modernism. In 1916-17, artists and poets of different nationalities gathered in Tiflis (Tbilisi), bringing ideas of futurism and cubo-futurism. During the short period of Georgia's independence (1918-1921), several artists went to Paris with the help of the government. Among them was one of the first representatives of surrealist abstraction, David Kakabadze.  Until the mid-1930s and the consolidation of socialist realism, Futurist-Dadaist books and magazines were printed in Tbilisi, and avant-garde plays and films staged. Dr. Ketevan Kintsurashvili’s presentation will show that Georgia was one of the important centers of the avant-garde movement in Europe at the beginning of the 20^th century.