New York discovers top Georgian contemporary artists

The United States is shining the spotlight on five Georgian contemporary artists in a New York exhibition to promote the talents of the widely unknown artists.

From tomorrow, pieces by Thea Gvetadze, Mamuka Japharidze, Nika Machaidze, Nino Sekhniashvili and Gio Sumbadze will be on display for two months at a New York exhibition space.

The display, titled Beyond Credit, will be hosted at the Ground Floor Gallery in Brooklyn. The exhibition aimed to raise awareness of the Georgian artists, who US-based news website www.observer.com said were "highly regarded in Europe but still mostly unknown in the States".

Works by the five artists were curated by founder of the Tbilisi-based Centre of Contemporary Art (CCA) Wato Tsereteli for display in New York.

The event’s official opening reception was hosted on Saturday to celebrate what will become the inaugural exhibition of the Art in General International Collaboration at its new gallery.

Organisers said the exhibition sought to "explore the artist’s process, as a mixture of modes involving rational thinking, intuition, contradiction, accident, mistake and absurdity, all of which serve as the building blocks for not only their artistic practices but also their lives".

The display was staged by the Art in General project in partnership with the CCA, with special support provided by New York's Trust for Mutual Understanding and Tbilisi-based Project ArtBeat.

Founded in 1981, Art in General supported the production of new work by American and international artists primarily through its New Commissions Program and International Collaborations program.

Beyond Credit will run from February 2 until April 2.