From March 22 to August 11, 2024, Belvedere 21 will present the first comprehensive retrospective of the Georgian-Austrian artist.
Vienna (OTS) – Over the approximately thirty years of her career, Tamuna Sirbiladze (1971–2016) has questioned the possibilities of painting uncompromisingly and consistently. Eight years after her death, the Belvedere is presenting the first comprehensive retrospective of the Georgian-Austrian artist, which depicts the entire spectrum of her artistic work, from painting to drawing to installation.
Director General Stella Rollig: In Vienna, Tamuna Sirbiladze, who comes from Tbilisi, developed her artistic signature, which is characterized by a distinctive expressive style and an anthropomorphic visual language. She has left behind an oeuvre that, full of esprit, humor and radicalism in the use of the painterly medium, repeatedly raises the question of “What if?”, which must remain unanswered.
Curator Sergey Harutoonian: The exhibition title Not Cool but Compelling (not cool, but compelling) refers to an oil pencil drawing of the same name from 2011. It aptly describes what Tamuna Sirbiladze was always about in her work, namely giving her idea of art a compelling form without giving in to the aesthetic conventions of her time put.
From her beginnings at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi to her final years in Vienna, Tamuna Sirbiladze underwent a remarkable artistic development that was abruptly ended by her early death at the age of 45. At a time that, tragically, also marked the peak of her artistic creativity and at the same time her international breakthrough.
Initially mainly figurative, Sirbiladze’s visual language increasingly moves away from representational representation towards abstraction, only to turn again to figuration at the beginning of the 2000s – under different circumstances. Although Sirbiladze consistently refrains from demonstrating her painterly virtuosity, which is why she is often referred to as a representative of bad painting, her explosive paintings do not lack beauty and radiance.
The human body, sexuality and vulnerability are recurring themes that also flow into Sirbiladze’s painting in the form of self-examination (and questioning). At the same time, her work is characterized by an intensive examination of classical art history. In several series she reinterprets iconic works and introduces other images of women into art with unadorned depictions of female bodies.
Not Cool but Compelling presents around 100 works from all phases of Tamuna Sirbiladze’s work, including central paintings, late drawings and a large installation that was created in collaboration with the artist’s husband, Franz West. The show at Belvedere 21 presents the artist’s entire oeuvre chronologically in five chapters and follows the common threads that run through her work.
An exhibition catalog with contributions by Sergey Harutoonian, Sophie von Hellermann, Magdalena Nieslony and Stella Rollig will be published in April by Buchhandlung Walther and Franz König, Cologne.
You can find further information and press photos HERE.
Questions & Contact:
Irene Jaeger
Belvedere Public Relations
+43 1 795 57-185
presse@belvedere.at
www.belvedere.at