"Connecting a Soviet-period artist with three artists of different generations, and placing them in creative dialogue, aims to maintain the 'thread of memory' and extend it across time and space."
— Konstantine Bolkvadze, Art Historian, 2025
The new visual translation of Nino Popkhadze's work, and her placement on the map of Georgian Soviet visual art, represents an attempt to critically reinterpret and systematize Soviet artistic heritage.
Nino Popkhadze is one of the many forgotten names in the history of Georgian visual art. A significant part of her creative legacy is preserved today in the archival collection of the Art Foundation Anagi. Revealing "new" names from the archive serves the preservation and study of historical memory. Researching the legacy of "forgotten" artists and giving their work new life is one of the Foundation's core missions.
The exhibition features three contemporary artists: Anuk Beluga, Giorgi Kontridze, and Luiza Laperadze. Their artistic language stands on the intersection of critical-objective observation and subjective perception. Popkhadze's universe, with its people, objects, characters, and animals, also moves along a delicate boundary between realism and personification. Within the exhibition, four variations of observing time and space come together, raising the question: Do they share anything in common?
The expressive language of Popkhadze's works is lively, distinctive, and multilayered. Her imagery seems to pulse with contemporary relevance. The modernity of her artistic voice was likely influenced by her extensive work in book graphics. During the Soviet period, illustrators were subject to less oppressive control and censorship. Popkhadze's artistic world, authorial vision, and emotional range reveal far more tenderness and sensitivity than traditional book or easel graphics, illustrations, or ex-libris. In several of her scenes, one can read the artist's deep reflection on time and space.