Journal ARS 47 (2014) 2

Bela TSIPURIA – Nana KIPIANI

Cubist Influence in Georgia: Cubo-Futurism, Kirill Zdanevich, David Kakabadze

(Summary)

Kirill Zdanevich and David Kakabadze are two artists most clearly carrying the Cubism influence in Georgia. It was logical that the awareness of Cubism aestheticism reached this small country in the South Caucasus, since by the edge of 1910s – 1920s a consistent interest in Modernist/avant-garde movements was increasing here. After the fall of the Russian Empire Georgia was established as a free European-style state, Georgian Democratic Republic (1918 – 1921), and the capital Tbilisi was developing into a new Modernist/avant-garde cultural centre. Intense artistic activities were held by poets and artists: Georgians, and those who came to Tbilisi in exile from Russian capitals. Symbolism, Futurism, Dadaism, Zaum, Cubo-Futurism were practiced, and multicultural and multi-aesthetical dialogue was established. Within the Tbilisi avant-garde environment, Modernist/avant-garde styles were carried out through various artistic projects. Although the rapports from soirees and café gatherings of that time mention some vivid discussions among the different groups, they were still sharing the same venues, and pages of same publications, being united with the spirit of artistic self-expression and experimentation. Some kind of synthetic approach to Modernist/avant-garde was not only practiced, but also conceptualized within the Tbilisi avant-garde community. While the Georgian Symbolist group Blue Horns was, as emphasized by H. Ram, providing an abbreviated history of modernism, Ilia Zdanevich was suggesting the concept of Vsiachestvo (‘everythingness’, derived from Russian word всё – everything), and the international Futurist/Zaum group 41°, leaded by Kruchenykh, was insisting on coalescing ‘orchestral’ approach to arts, which was transformed to the idea of “orchestral painting” by Kirill Zdanevich. Apparent signs of Cubism can often be identified in the works by Kirill Zdanevich and David Kakabadze. Although their works pertain to a somewhat later period and do not exactly concur with the time when Cubism as such was being shaped, sharing of the language is obvious as is its peculiar interpretation. Georgian Cubism predominantly conveys the traits of Synthetic Cubism, which is also understandable. However, as far as their causes and outcomes are concerned, these traits differ from the Cubism movement, reflecting the inherent distinction in Georgian Modernistic consciousness that, overall, had already been outlined by that time. What do we really witness in Georgian Cubism, i. e. in the works of David Kakabade and Kirill Zdanevich, the two artists who were intrinsically different from each other? Cubo-Futurism signs prevail in Kirill Zdanevich’s artworks. David Kakabadze, on the other hand, transforms the Cubist method in his own way and brings it clearly under his constructivist logic, using some Neoplastisism signs. Both artists, however, are united by a certain internal logic: an actual denial of the three dimensional nature of space, i.e. denial of the reflection of the shape into planes that are spatially relief-like and, therefore, descend into depth, the maximum extension onto the surface, attaching the utmost priority to flatness, and the simplicity of perception. After 1921, with the Sovietization of Georgia, Modernist/avant-garde activities in Tbilisi were cut short. Artists in exile left the country, although Georgians still continued, for a while, creating their Modernist/avant-garde works. Although, in Soviet-totalitarian cultural environment, within the Stalin-established cultural policy, modernists all over the USSR were forced to reject own aesthetic position and “switch to Soviet rails”. The new cultural style, enforced by the Soviet state, the Socialist Realism, was actually altered by Georgian modernist by classic principles of realism, which seemed more acceptable to the Soviet regime. They were not able to produce modernist works any more, and by the end of 1920s all traces of avant-garde, including Cubism, was erased from the cultural reality, and, soon, also from the cultural memory. Kirill Zdanevich and David Kakabadze, both continued their artistic life in Georgia under the harsh ideological pressure, and for a decades, their avant-garde works were ignored and excluded from the official cultural space. Interest in these works increased, of course, in post-Soviet times.