Anniversary of pioneering artist, inventor and researcher David Kakabadze celebrated in Tbilisi exhibition

An anniversary exhibition in Georgia’s capital will mark 130 years since the birth of David Kakabadze, an artist, inventor and a pioneer of Georgian modernism considered one of the most important figures of the country’s contemporary art history.

David Kakabadze — The Creative is opening at Tbilisi’s TBC Gallery next week and will also kick-off a number of “multi-stage, large-scale” projects to celebrate the date.

The display will bring to public eye the artist’s sketches, notes, documents and other material to highlight his role as a researcher and scientist, in addition to his inclusion of both Oriental and Western elements in “unique” creations.

The exhibition is designed to centre around Kakabadze’s lifelong inspiration connecting the worlds of art and science. The inventor was known for his work in France and Georgia for developing theory as well as devices bringing the two realms together, including a glassless stereo cinematograph he worked on in the 1920s.

A glassless stereo cinematograph developed by the inventor in the 1920s. Photo: Art Palace museum.

Earlier this year, the work earned Kakabadze a spot in Once Upon a Try, a Google Arts and Culture digital exposition celebrating inventions and achievements by personalities including aviator Amelia Earhart, scientist Nikola Tesla and astronomer Isaac Newton.

His life and work is explored on the platform through a slideshow titled David Kakabadze: Experiments With Art and Technology, with brief facts about his ideas and biographical notes on the avant-garde creative.

The major figure of Georgian art also worked on technical methods of lighting, culminating in a piece of three-dimensional light art, along with collage works created for the purpose.

Born in 1889, Kakabadze studied natural sciences at the St. Petersburg University in Tsarist Russia and began his research of Georgian art during the time. Later living and working in Paris in the 1920s, he published articles on theory while working on technological inventions.

Kakabadze’s 1929 work for poet Terenti Graneli. Photo: State Museum of Literature of Georgia.

Returning to Georgia later in the decade he began work in theatre and cinema design, creating sets for productions based on Georgian and international stage classics as well as films by Soviet Georgian directors.

His works connecting different forms of art include examples such as a 1929 work for poet Terenti Graneli, obtained by the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia in 2017.

Kakabadze also worked as professor at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts between 1928-1948. He died in Tbilisi in 1952.

The TBC Gallery exhibition will host viewers between May 8-June 20 at 7, Marjanishvili Street.