Pirosmani & Zdanevichs
2018
Alexander Chavchavadze House – Museum, Tsinandali, Kakheti
On the background of the dynamic and diversified events that happened in the Georgian culture space at the beginning of the twentieth century, the discovery of Niko Pirosmani’s art pieces was a sensation, especially since the discoverers were such important figures of that and subsequent periods as Ilia and Cyril Zdenevichs. Among those who had discovered Pirosmani with Zadanevichs were the French painter Mikhail Le Dantu, Kolau Cherniavski, and others, but the brothers Zdanevichs were leading players in the process of revelation of this artist to Georgia and the world. In the early 20th century, the Zdanevichs (Ilia-Iliazd, a poet, writer, and philosopher, and Cyril, an artist, and futurist) were the trendsetters of the events that managed the process of cultural migration in Georgian art. A group of Georgian and foreign artists, writers, and poets who emigrated from Europe and Russia, created a unique outline of Georgian culture in the polystructural space of which the figure of Pirosmani was ascending. Pirosmani is present in the Zdanevichs’ archive, publications, or drawings, everywhere- he accompanies their life and creativity as the drowned flow. The creative works of both brothers, Cyril’s paintings here, in the changing environment of Soviet Georgia, and Ilia’s publications in France where he emigrated, are full of Pirosmani’s world, themes, feelings. The invisible coexistence of Ilia and Pirosmani continued in Paris so that Picasso, influenced by Iliazd, painted his portrait for Iliazd’s publication “Pirosmani. 1914”.
The exhibition “Pirosmani and Zdanevichs” at Alexander Chavchavadze House Museum in Tsinandali presents three personalities of Georgian culture: Niko Pirosmani, Cyril, and Ilya Zdanevichs, whose lives and creativity encompassed the Pirosmani’s world and emotional intonation.
The exhibition features Niko Pirosmani’s “Still Life with Sugarloaf” from Niko Pirosmaniashvili State Museum in Mirzaani, Cyril Zdanevich’s color graphics from private collections (Baia Gallery), Ilia Zdanevich’s publications (the private collection).
The relationship that emerged and counts for more than a century continues in the Tsinandali exhibition.