"Painting a Splitting City: Elene Akhvlediani's Tbilisi Old and New" –Lecture by Alex Fisher
Events
On December 11, at 5:00 pm, in Auditorium F303, Alex Fisher will present his research on "Painting a splitting city: Elene Akhvlediani’s Tbilisi Old and New".
The seminar is part of the research seminar series organized by the doctoral program in anthropology and the research project “Tbilisi as an Urban Assemblage".
Abstract:
Elene Akvhlediani's Tbilisi Old and New (1973) depicts an urban environment undergoing major change. The painting, by the Georgian artist Elene Akhvlediani, looks out over the low-slung ‘old’ Tbilisi towards the vertical ‘new’ Tbilisi. A landscape of a city whose two layers resist intermingling, the painting is an outlier in the artist’s portfolio and a compelling cultural artifact through which to consider the relationship between Tbilisi’s defining architectural forms, as that relationship is being wrought. In this paper, Alex Fisher conducts a visual analysis of the painting and considers its enduring relevance half a century after its creation.
Short Bio:
Alex Fisher is a writer and curator from Buffalo, New York. He received his master’s in Design Studies with distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Graduate Student Associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Center for European Studies. He received his bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in Economics and History of Art. In 2019-2020, he was a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine, where he worked with public and private arts organizations.
Alex organizes exhibitions and manages projects with and for galleries, museums, biennials, artist studios, theaters, festivals, and fashion houses. Past and current partners include, but are not limited to: the Yoko Ono, Petrit Halilaj and Nikita Kadan Studios, Manifesta, Mystetskyi Arsenal, COMME des GARÇONS, and the Initiating Council of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kosovo.
Alex participated in the 2020 Tbilisi Architecture Biennial and is the biennial's fall 2023 resident.
Working Language: English
Date and Time: December 11, 5:00 p.m.
Location: Ilia State University, Auditorium F303, 3/5 Kakutsa Cholokashvili Avenue
Attendance is free.
2023