EXHIBITION: New Medea art brings artists together (georgiatoday.ge)

The second part will start on 26. august until 26. septembre in the "Künstlerhaus Saarbrücken". The title would be there "Tiflis Transfer". Aditional there would are an art-blog with the same title to the art and to the capital of Georgia - Tbilisi. Arround the 22. August you can find more here in this blog.

Print version (georgiatoday.ge)
By Anna Chichinadze 10.07.2009

The New Medea Theater Collective launched recently a contemporary art project, whose name alludes to mythology and the reason behind the initiative.
German artist Patricia London Ante Paris, creator and the curator of the project, was disturbed with the distance between artists abroad and in post-Soviet countries. She found it difficult to “reach” Europe for many reasons, with visas topping the list.
Patricia gathered the collective of Georgian artists because she said, “We claim to be democratic countries, but we do not even have the freedom of travel.”
Concerned with this issue, she decided to gather her colleagues to participate in one project.
The first show was held at Tbilisi’s New Art Cafe. The collection will travel to Kuenstlerhaus, Saarbrucken, Germany, in August.
The project is built around the story of the legendary “Golden Fleece.” According to Georgian and Greek legends, Jason and his band of Argonauts arrive to the Kingdom of Colchis — today’s Kolkheti in western Georgia — to find the fleece. Princess Medea helps Jason capture the fleece and later escapes with him. Patricia altered the story as if Jason arrived to the region in search of oil, and Medea promised to help him if he would take the princess and her artist friends abroad.
The exhibition includes all genres of new media, such as video, photography, computer graphics, drawing and mixed techniques.
Sofi Babluani, 22, used a mixed technique to show a woman, Media-Medea Magnate, with a ram in her neck and an oil well in the background. Anthea Nicholson drew two human heads over hills, defining their being as a mix of energy, love and oil. Georgian composer Natia Sartania, also known as “Stia,” provided a rather standard, photographed self-portrait shot in a car mirror, which supposedly reveals the Medea’s feminine nature.
Four videos were also exhibited. In one video, two men in black, motley suits made of paper wave their hands back and forth violently, which expresses confusion over the direction in which oil is flowing.
If one listens with closed eyes Stia’s musical accompaniment creates an ancient atmosphere.
However, the video recalls something more modern and less artistic, perhaps because contemporary art is a tight circle. The collective’s artwork was designed to be small, so it could easily bring the works to Germany, hoping the authors will also follow.
“When the works are exhibited, the artists should be there as well,” painter Nino Chipashvili said. “Otherwise the event will pass without reason. To go further in your work, you need contact, changing ideas and emotions. Offers for future collaborations only come after engaging in personal relations with people in the same space where you show your art.”
“London Ante Paris” is Patricia’s alias which she created for her thesis when graduating from the Munich Arts Academy. She took a new surname, presented as a diploma work, and received an excellent evaluation.
“I like when you cannot read one’s nation, class or race because of a name,” Patricia said, expressing her wish for no boundaries for artists around the world.