Düsseldorf museum to celebrate Niko Pirosmani alongside famed names of art
Pirosmani’s 1905 painting of a feast in Tbilisi. Photo: Georgia’s Cultural Heritage Agency press office.
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For five months starting this Saturday, works by Georgia’s celebrated early 20th century painter Niko Pirosmani will join artwork by famous names at Düsseldorf‘s Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum.
A selection of the self-taught artist’s creations will be part of museum global. Microhistories of an Ex-centric Modernism, for a highlight of artwork created between 1910-1960.
Within the show, four pieces by the Georgian creative will be exhibited alongside works by artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Frida Kahlo and Kazimir Malevich.
[The display] focuses on selected instances of a transcultural modernism that is situated beyond the Western canon.“
With microhistories from Japan, Georgia, Brazil, Mexico, India, Lebanon, and Nigeria [...] the museum interrogates not just an Eurocentric version of art history, but its own perspectives as well”, a preview from organisers noted.
The German museum’s summary also said the display would raise relevant questions about emergence of national and cultural identities, as well as “cultural and political influence” of travels and exchanges, among other subjects.
The Pirosmani works picked for the display come from collections of the Mirzaani State Museum named after the artist, and the Georgian National Museum network.
Pirosmani’s 1910s portrait of a woman in Georgia’s capital. Photo: Georgia’s Cultural Heritage Agency press office.
Born Niko Pirosmanashvili in eastern Georgia’s Kakheti province in 1862, the artist took an early interest in painting, however he never received formal art training.
Moving to the capital Tbilisi, he made a living painting shop plaques, portraits and landscapes for bar owners but never managed to escape poverty in the city.
The Düsseldorf exhibition is set for opening as another highlight event on the painter is receiving visitors at at Vienna’s Albertina Museum.
Launched on October 26, the first Austrian showcase of the creative marks 100 years since his death in the capital city.
The German display on modernism is set to run between November 10, 2018-March 10, 2019.