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Andro Wekua at Kunsthalle Zürich

July 2, 2018

Artist: Andro Wekua

Exhibition title: All is Fair in Dreams and War

Curated by: Daniel Baumann

Venue: Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Date: June 9 – August 5, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Kunsthalle Zürich / © Photos: Annik Wetter

All is Fair in Dreams and War provides a view of the motifs Andro Wekua has positioned in various constellations, like a set of pieces on a chessboard, for almost twenty years: the house, the landscape, the interior, the animal, the figure, the face, the seam. We know variation, recombination, and the development of themes as creative strategies in the realms of music, literature, and film. Only in visual art have these become somewhat forgotten or discredited, or they are confused with mere repetition. Wekua’s oeuvre shows how important they are, how they circle and capture impressions and memories to ultimately build landscapes of the soul.

History plays an important role here – or to put it better: another experience of history and time. Wekua’s art has been beholden to his interests and his life in the West since 1995, but also to his time before that in Sochumi, Tbilisi and civil war-affected Georgia. In his work West meets East, or more precisely East encounters West, though not as opposites, as many would like to see it, but as a complex and contradictory entanglement: „It is directed against everything that belongs to the system of art” (Wekua).

This is Andro Wekua’s largest solo exhibition to date, and includes new sculptures, a current series of portraits, a selection of collages and of older paintings as well as a brand new film. Wekua’s oeuvre possesses a distinctive feeling for both seduction and rejection, it is unabashed and intensive, and it shines with a knowledge of materials, form, and mise-en-scène. His art speaks of the invisible yet omnipresent spaces between before and after that serve to conjure a present, which ultimately is both poetic and political.

Daniel Baumann, Director Kunsthalle Zurich

Andro Wekua, born 1977 in Sochumi (former Soviet Union), lives and works in Berlin.

On the occasion of All is Fair in Dreams and War, the first comprehensive monograph of Andro Wekua’s work is published:

Andro Wekua, with contributions by Daniel Baumann, Pablo Larios, Paulina Pobocha, and Ali Subotnick. Design by Dan Solbach. Kunsthalle Zürich and JRP/Ringier, Zürich, 2018.

Thanks to Gladstone Gallery New York/Brussels and Sprüth Magers.

Andro Wekua, Blue Hold, 2017-2018 Ceramic and mixed media, 142 × 70 × 38 cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Andro Wekua, Untitled, 2018, Oil paint and silkscreen ink on aluminum panel, 125 × 85 cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Andro Wekua, Untitled, 2018, Oil paint, silkscreen ink and varnish on aluminum panel, 295×125cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Andro Wekua, K. Portrait / Palm, 2017, Oil paint and silkscreen ink on aluminum panel, 100 × 70 cm, Courtesy of David Shuman Collection, Martha’s Vineyard

Andro Wekua, E. Portrait Collage, 2018, Collage auf Papier, 66 × 52 cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Sprüth Magers

Andro Wekua, Untitled, 2018, Oil paint and silkscreen ink on aluminum panel, 85 × 125 cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Andro Wekua, Untitled, 2018, Oil paint, silkscreen ink and varnish on aluminum panel, 130×125cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Andro Wekua, W. Portrait II, 2017, Oil paint, silkscreen ink and varnish on aluminum panel, 100×70cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Andro Wekua, Installation view, All is Fair in Dreams and War, 2018, Kunsthalle Zürich