Tbilisi exhibition transforms text into visual art

A group of Georgian artists are bringing new meaning to words by transforming them from literature into visual art.

This week an exhibition is opening in Tbilisi showcasing works by more than a dozen Georgian artists who use text to portray new creative meanings.

The exhibition, named Museum of Word, will open tomorrow at the Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Georgian Literature and focus on the ways the addition of text influences perception of visual art, as well as connections between image and text.

As well as highlighting the European tradition of word-art - the usage of language in artistic images - the display will also celebrate the Georgian legacy of text art created by local modernist artists over time.

The exhibition 'Museum of Word' will be hosted by Tbilisi's Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Georgian Literature. Photo from the Museum/Facebook.

The exhibition will feature works from senior artists created in the 1990s as well as creations of the last decade and recent pieces made specifically for the exhibition.

Georgian contemporary artists represented in the exhibition include duo Mariam Natroshvili and Detu Jintcharadze, Iliko Zautashvili, Guram Tsibakhashvili and Gio Sumbadze.

Works featured in the Museum of Word exhibition were curated by Magda Guruli and Mariam Natroshvili.

Alongside the display, which will be open to the public until May 16, the opening event on Thursday will also include a presentation of the first issue of a new monthly contemporary art newspaper Revolver.

The newspaper is published with support from the Swiss Cooperation Office within the South Caucasus Art and Culture Regional Program.

Established in 1929, the Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Georgian Literature repositories feature around 130,000 manuscripts, 2000 visual works and 27,000 photographs illustrating the development of local and international literature.