ART CITIES:Vienna- Thea Djordjadze

Combining traditional materials of sculpture such as plaster and wood with everyday objects like foam and linoleum, Thea Djordjadze (creates installations of sculptural objects that are sited to respond to one another and the space of their installation. Her work is characterized by tensions between materials and forms.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Secession Archive

Thea Djordjadze’s process-based artistic praxis reads as an ongoing process in which existing and new elements, materials and objects are repurposed, reconfigured, and rearranged. Her exhibition project “To be in an upright position on the feet (studio visit)”, for the Association of Visual Artists Vienna-Secession, implies transferring her studio and literally everything in it to Vienna. Here, the artist will respond to the iconic exhibition space and create a site-specific installation with her studio’s inventory, at once a kind of meta-exhibition, while her studio in Berlin remains empty. The artist makes expansive installations that she develops in situ and in close interaction with the surrounding spaces. The artist begins by exploring the specific qualities of a given exhibition space and then creates work that subtly transforms the perception and possible readings of the architectonic situation. Presented in carefully composed arrangements sometimes complemented by found objects, paintings, and drawings, her installations recall domestic or functional settings. Her idiosyncratically proportioned sculptures suggest pieces of furniture or elements of an exhibition display such as beds, frameworks, pedestals, or showcases. The design vocabulary blends modernist geometric rigor with organic amorphous improvisation. Yet the elements correspond not only to each other, but always also to the given spatial context, building a palpable tension.

Info: Secession, Friedrichstraße 12, Vienna, Duration: 8/9-1/11/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.secession.at