CULTURE:



The David Kakabadze Art Gallery
Director: Georgi Lomtadze
Address: #8, Rustaveli Ave.
Phone: 5 23 29, 5 40 75


The Kutaisi Art Gallery was founded in 1976 and since then it has been making the chronicle of the cultural life of the city. It is named after David Kakabadze. In 1962 according to the decision made by the Council of Ministry of Georgia the Art Gallery was opened in Kutaisi. This Gallery existed only for a year and after its abolition the territory was delivered to the Union of Artists as exhibition halls. For 12 years of its existence personal exhibilitions of outstanding Georgian artists were held in those halls. In 1973 the reconstruction of the building suitable for the gallery began according to the project of Givi Todadze, Honoured Architect of the Republic and the architect Suliko Gagua. Paintings of Georgian artists were collected and the Republic Art Council began to buy the works of Niko Pirosmani, Jakob Nikoladze, David Kakabadze, Lado Gudiashvili, Elene Akhvlediani, Elguja Amashukeli and others. For the first 10 years about 150 exhibitions were held in the gallery that proved very intensive work of the gallery. The exhibition of Kutaisian students who study at the Art Academy is often remarkable. We must also mention personal and international exhibitions. In 1986 sculptur George Lomtadze was appointed as the director of the gallery. At that time a lot of tasks had to be solved by the gallery, the number of the exhibits kept in the funds was increased that caused some structural changes. At first there were held charged lectures for the audience which were listened to with great interest. That helped not only art propaganda but also activated the scientific work. Since 1994 the work at the Art Gallery has 3 directions: to calculate and defend the funds of the gallery, exhibitional work and art propaganda. There used to carry out professional work while discussing the exhibitions, a lot of articles and catalogues were published and they made interesting TV programs. Problems produced during market economics resist activation the work of the gallery. The administration of the gallery do their best to solve these problems and hope that the social-economic situation of the country in the future will help to realize them. Nowadays different kinds of exhibitions (personal, children's, spring, autumn, amateur and masters' of national art, classics' etc.), creative evenings, competitions are held at the Art Gallery.



Source: http://aia.iatp.org.ge/Eng/Cultura&Art/galery1.htm