Three-part exhibition celebrates Georgia-Israel cultural relations

Georgia and Israel are forging closer cultural relations through art at an exhibition in Old Tbilisi, featuring painters from both nations.

The countries’ friendly relationship spans more than 2,500 years and for the next two weeks an exhibition in Old Tbilisi will unify the two countries through a three-part exhibition by artists from Georgia, Israel and Ukraine.

The exhibition, titled Desert, Stones, Cities, will launch tonight at 6pm the Ioseb Grishashvili Tbilisi History Museum, located near Sioni Church in Old Tbilisi. The event will feature works by Georgia’s Mamuka Tsetskhladze, Israel’s Anatoly-Shmuel Schelest and Ukraine’s Alexey Dmitriev, who each created a section of the three-part exhibition.

The Tbilisi History Museum said the exhibition was part of a cultural exchange project organised by the Skizza Gallery in Jerusalem, Israel, which intended to connect the two countries and support the development of future cross-country cultural exchange.

The three artists were tasked with creating their own works but when put together they complemented each other following the themes desert, stones and cities. Skizza Gallery curator Marina Genkina told Imedi reporters the exhibition’s format highlighted the "completely unique” work by the three exhibitors while still showing their pieces had common themes.

A desert is a symbol of eternity, while stones are tied to emotions of the past. And there would have probably been no cities without the first two phenomena,” Genkina said while speaking about the event.

The exhibition features three connecting themes by the three participating painters. Image from www.museum.ge.

Ukrainian artist Dmitriev said he had spent "many years” working on his series Stones, while Israeli artist Schelest spoke about how he used philosophical inspiration to depict freedom when working on his series Desert.

The Tbilisi event will be the second occasion of the joint Georgia-Israel project following an exhibition by Georgian artists Lia Shvelidze and Mamuka Tsetskhladze at the Skizza Gallery in Jerusalem.

The Desert, Stones, Cities exhibition will run until October 27 at the Museum, located on Sioni St in Georgia’s capital.