THE ART OF PERESTROIKA: NEW MOVEMENTS IN GEORGIAN ART OF THE 1980s

Abstract

The study of Georgian art of the perestroika is very important, especially in the context of the history of art movements of the 1980s, linked to the establishment of the non-official art groups in Tbilisi.

The aim of this article is to analyze the history of the establishment of the art groups Archivarius (1984) and Tenth Floor (1986) and to discuss the art movements of the 1980s in Tbilisi. The generation of Georgian artists involved in the non-official art groups fundamentally changed the art scene of that period and played an important role of the development of contemporary art in Georgia. Perestroika, associated with Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness, contributed to a shift in political and sociocultural discourse throughout the Soviet Union and also played an important role in the artistic processes in Georgia. All the events that took place in the 1980s art scene of Tbilisi portray a vigorous willingness to hasten away from the Soviet dimension and maintain the memory of a historical discourse. Some artists found a way out through emigration; others discovered an intangible shelter via working collectively. Perestroika had clearly formed a special environment in which things that were previously unseen became visible. The Georgian avant-garde managed to create its own sui generis aesthetic and theoretical principles in just a decade, alongside expressing postmodernist hues at certain points.