The last Fugue played by Thea Djordjadze is at Francesca Kaufmann, Milan
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- Thea Djordjadze Untitled, 2013 steel, foam (14 benches) variable dimensions. Oxymoron Grey – Courtesy the artist; Spruth Magers, Berlin; and kaufmann repetto, Milano.
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- Thea Djordjadze Untitled, 2013 paint on plaster, carpet, glass (framed) 34,5 x 48,2 x 4,8 cm. Oxymoron Grey – Courtesy the artist; Spruth Magers, Berlin; and kaufmann repetto, Milano.
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- Untitled, 2013 steel, paint 60 x 34 x 42 cm; 48 x 33,5 cm. Oxymoron Grey – Courtesy the artist; Spruth Magers, Berlin; and kaufmann repetto, Milano.
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- Untitled, 2013 carpet, paint; paint on plaster, carpet, glass (framed), 203 x 67 x 36,5 cm
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- Thea Djordjadze Untitled, 2013 steel, foam (14 benches) variable dimensions. Detail.
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- Untitled, 2013 acrylic paint, paper, glue on plaster (framed) 34,5 x 48,3 x 3,8 cm.
“The title is part of the sculpture, and I really care about it” declared Thea Djordjadze to a journalist in 2012, in occasion of her solo show at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne, Australia. Nevertheless, all of the artworks exhibited in her current solo show “Oxymoron Grey” at Francesca Kaufmann in Milan are untitled. What does it mean? The artist’s answer would probably be as simple as… it does mean nothing. Yes, nothingness, that is the point.
The tradition to which this evasive 42 years old Georgian artist living in Berlin is firmly rooted in are the Seventies – somewhere in-between anti form and Arte Povera –, the same tradition which her friend and colleague Carol Bove belongs to, even if in a more predictable way. Art is an objective matter, in its arranged-found objects, in its “dimension and orientation” as well as in its capability of “reorganizing” time and space; all of these, naturally, verbal formula to generate the abstract. “What makes an idea become an artwork?” we asked her during the last Venice Biennial, while she was literally hand painting a wall of the Georgia Pavilion at the Arsenale – something very similar to the painted window now at Francesca Kaufmann. Firmly she answered: “some kind of collision”.
As it occurs with certain types of artworks by Rosmarie Trockel – her former teacher at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then a close friend of the artist – the observer who looks at Djordjaze’s artworks expecting to find an answer of any kind will most likely get lost in an annoying sense of frustration. He will bounce off the patchy and uncorrelated surfaces like a fly against a closed window. But as soon as he gives up any expectation, he will eventually see these always singular structures attracting the space around, in a very familiar way. Why familiar? Because Djordjadze’s work follows up a precise tradition and starve to be part of it. Thus, which song or kind of music is better comparable with your art? “Fugue” she replies.
July 15, 2015
