Friday 24 May 2013

Center Of Contemporary Art - Tbilisi





Center of Contemporary Art –Tbilisi (CCA-T) is an independent, nonprofit organization. The main goal of CCA-Tbilisi is to support the development of contemporary art in Georgia and in Caucasus region as well. For a country with deeply rooted cultural traditions it is of crucial importance to have an independent and open institution, which will work on contextualization of contemporary visual culture and help Georgian and international artists to effectively present creative production to local and international audiences.

The center is acting as a hub in Georgia, linking and working with similar organizations around the world. We also aim to stimulate research in contemporary visual culture in Georgia and abroad. Our main research project is focused on art that was repressed in Soviet times and due to censorship largely forgotten. It is time for Georgia to start dealing with its troubled past and move on from there. CCA-Tbilisi intends to play important role in these processes.

The Center has four key activities: organizing professional exhibitions of interesting and innovating contemporary art work; educating motivated art students; conducting research of Georgian art and creating exchange opportunities of artists and curators with different partner institutions worldwide. We intend to make CCA-Tbilisi into a vital asset to the cultural life of Tbilisi.



Initiators and invited teachers at CCA-Tbilisi have 12 years of experience in organizing private art education. Wato Tsereteli, the director of CCA-Tbilisi, has proven his organizational skills, enthusiasm for art and persistence in setting up Tbilisi’s first and only photography institute.

Exhibition

The exhibitions of contemporary art is a core activity of the Center.The gallery of CCA – Tbilisi has about 150 square meter space divided into 3 proportional parts.Main Strategy is to approach the audience by innovative social and cultural interaction.To propose contemporary art, on the one hand, as a spatial/architectural experiment to provide kind of journey for the visitor, and on the other hand, to produce exhibitions which will try to contextualize contemporary art and its history in Georgia.Reflection on actual local or global questions in relation with art practice has permanent character.

The strategy concerning exhibition production and design aims to establish in Georgia, and the Caucasus region, professional standards in which each work has carefully chosen space and is provided by necessary verbal information.

The Educational Officer (EO) of CCAT is inviting visitors from schools and universities, staff of partner organizations (TBC Bank, international cultural institutions and embassies, Elkana, Gipa, Icomos Georgia); journalists form different media (TV Broadcasting, radio's, newspapers, bloggers).Visitors get a tour of the exhibition and are meeting the participant artist for a public dialogue.

Center hosts 8 exhibitions a year and organizes audiovisual festivals quarterly.


Education 

CCA-Tbilisi offers a unique 9-month Informal Master Program in 5 different fields:
 
• Mediation (Context Production)
• Audio/Sound Art
• Photography
• 2D Art (Painting/Drawing)
• Moving Image (Video Art)

Students from each of these fields are taught in separate ateliers both in theory and practice. All students also attend shared theory lessons.

The program gives each student the opportunity to reflect theoretically and in practice on his/her chosen discipline as well as to focus on the production of his/her independent works. All ateliers join at the end of the program to exhibit in a final show at the CCA-Tbilisi gallery space. This exhibition is then documented both in a printed catalogue and a digital publication (DVD). Together these form a professional basis for the students' further creative activities.

In addition all students attend the 9-month course "Bio Farming in Relation to Art Praxis" at the Cloud Library, residency of Mamuka Japharidze and Anthea Nicholson in Shindisi.

During the program students are also involved in other activities at CCA-Tbilisi: They assist curators and artists as well as attend various additional workshops and lectures.

Selected groups of 10 students maximum will be accepted per atelier. The selection criteria are the students' motivation and portfolio. Further selection is based on interviews.

Initiators and invited teachers have 12 years' experience in teaching and the organization of alternative art education.

Research

The Department is involved in various forms of creative research in the field of contemporary art but also of modern and soviet art in Georgia. Its task is to promote a dialogue amongst various artistic media, and to contribute with its research to the development of contemporary art.

 The Department encourages experimentation as a method of developing various curatorial practices, as well as cooperation among curators, theoreticians, and artists on joint projects. This form of activity is realized through various innovative projects, exhibitions, events and presentations. The first beginnings of this strategy can be traced to the Center's activity when it launched several exhibition projects under the titles: The Health; Transit; On the Way; Writing with Color; The Other Narration; and A fragment of Time Which is not Recorded.

The Department is working on the publication project Art History in Georgia that would reconsider the history of Georgian art of the pre and post soviet period and reveal the modernist artists whose work has fallen into oblivion, due to Soviet censorship. This publication aims also to contextualize Georgian modern and contemporary art in international historical frames. Another planned project is to set up art archive and media library that can be used as resource center for contemporary artists and art events.

Consulting

The circulation of an artwork, when the work is transmitted to another person is most natural process for any creative producer. CCA-Tbilisi offers unique service in Georgia, to consult art collectors and general public by selecting artworks. Our database reflects wide range of contemporary art production.
Our experts advise you to find suitable piece for your environment. Each enquiry is being processed on an individual bases. Any purchase is accompanied by an annotation of our art historian's and reflects the importance of the author and the concrete artwork in historical context.

Tourism - Interpreting Tbilisi as artwork

Your cumbo* guide invites you to visit Tbilisi in a different order: by cumbowalking through a city built on ancient tales and kilometers of hot sulphur water bassains. Today Tbilisi is a place of spontaneous architecture - an anarchic mix of old cosmopolites, fading socialists and sprawling urban life. Consequently, Cumbowalking is a constantly evolving artwork, where you might encounter the silhouette of Kazbegi or visit contemporary Georgian artists.
You pay for cumbo as much as you think you should. Cumbo lives on http://www.cca.ge and speaks Georgian, English, German, Dutch and Russian. If you want cumboarttbilisitour you just call him: +995 577 468446

* Cumbo is a holy servant that can materialise in any person. Cumbo serves only good intentions - no matter in whom or where they are.

Exchange

Artists' residency and exchange program is important addition to the CCAT platform. Short or long term exchange between artists and curators from Tbilisi and other cities has unique aspect of researching and reacting on environment by artistic expression. At the moment CCAT works on development of long-term cooperation with other artists exchange networks to create new opportunities meeting and exchanging artists and curators internationally.
The artists' residency room is a 30 sq. meters including bathroom.


Contact:
Wato Tsereteli
Founder, Head of CCA-Tbilisi
+995 577 468 446

George Spanderashvili
Projects Coordinator
+995 558 900 400

Katharina Stadler
Educational programs curator
+995 593 302 845

Website:    http://www.cca.ge
Phone:       +995 032 2 956 958 / +995 558 900 400
Email:        info(at)cca.ge

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