Wednesday, January 23, 2008

ART EXHIBITION: Laboratory for the future, architectural history of Georgia

Sophio Medoidze: Laboratory for the Future - 4 January untill 16 February 2008

Private View: 11th January, 6.30 - 8.30 pm

Swiss Cottage Gallery 88
Avenue Road, London NW3 3HA
Laboratory For The Future is the first solo exhibition in the UK by the Georgian born artist Sophio Medoidze.

The exhibition explores the architectural history of Soviet Georgia, a formerly prosperous Soviet Republic. The photographs were taken in 2007, during the artist's journey through historically important industrial sites.

The form adopted by Soviet Architecture was generated from a concept of the building's social function, conveying the sense of its shaping a new society. This vision is re-examined in Sophio's work that in turn is influenced by early Russian Avant Garde, with its use of unusual angles and converging perspectives along with the realities of life in Soviet Georgia in her childhood.


"I chose as a foundation a segment of the past — the industrial architecture of Soviet Georgia—that mingled with the philosophy of chaos and thus led to a deconstructionist trend that I consider to be specific because of its political context. I work with the kind of allegories that make use of pathos, heroism, utopia and humour."

Sophio Medoidze was born in 1978 in Tbilisi. She studied Film Criticism before moving to London, where she graduated from the University of the Arts in London (MA Photography). She works with different media including photography, sound, video and text. Her work was recently included in the Kaunas 07 Georgian Pavilion.

The exhibition catalogue will be available to download in PDF format from

www.medoidze.com

No comments: