Upon leaving the Borgia exhibition, we were stopped by an attendant and
asked if we had visited the second floor. Of course we had not. There
were certainly no attendants around when I went to see the Serge
Poliokoff. Perhaps the Maillol museum has understood that many visitors
don’t think to go further once that have seen the exhibition they came
to see.
Invariably the « other » exhibition is modern or contemporary.
Once again it was the case. Marielle saw at once that I was in my
element. Once again too, I knew nothing about the Russian artist.
Born
in 1889, in Georgia, David Kakabadze was a « multi-artist »: modernist
artist, film director, stage designer, experimenter, inventor of
glassless stereo cinema, art researcher and theorist. We are told that
he was one of the most significant figures of Georgian modernism. After
finishing Kutaisi gymnasium, he studied at the faculty of Natural
Sciences within St. Petersburg University. At the same time, he worked
in the studio of the painter L. Dimitryev-Kavkazsky. Naturally, I had
never heard of him either. After a brief period of working as a painter
and educator in Tbilisi, he went to Paris where he lived from 1919 to
1927. In 1926, the founders of ‘Société Anonyme’ Catherine Drier,
Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, with collaboration of Wassily Kandinsky,
Kurt and Helen Schwitters, Fernand Leger, Heinrich Kampendonk and Anton
Giulio Bragaglia -- arranged a big international exhibition of modern
art at the Brooklyn Museum. The Société Anonyme which was also known as
an “Experimental Museum,” purchased Davit Kakabadze’s works. Among the
works was the sculpture “Z,” which today is kept at Yale University Art
Gallery together with his other works. We only saw it on a video program
- it looked quite something.
The Brooklyn Museum exhibition
opened on 19 November, 1926 and closed on 1 January, 1927. And this was
the fatal year when Kakabadze returned to the annexed and
Soviet-dominated Georgia after travelling to Germany, Italy and Greece.
Once back in Georgia and mounting a one-man exhibition at the “Orient
Hotel” in 1928, he produced no art until 1933. The artist himself called
these years his “silent period.” In 1930s his works, especially from
the Parisian period are considered formalistic. He was forced to
compromise and in 1940-1950s creates pictures on industrial themes. On
July 12, 1948 the order was issued to the Tbilisi Academy of Art that he
“could not instruct students according to the socialist realism method
and he was dismissed from his position from the 1948-49 academic year.”
David Kakabadze died unexpectedly on 10 May, 1952.
This is a
resumé of what I discovered on Internet. Without having had time to
really read the text displayed in the museum, I started taking
photographs of what I really liked - and at once a booming voice
came over a loud speaker that photos were forbidden in the museum. That was a
first. Obviously a central surveillance was watching the whole museum. I
can assure you that I didn’t try again. Once home I looked on Internet
and discovered a lot about him - and above is my resumé. Also all the
images that I had seen in the museum - and with the right to use them -
so why on earth is the museum so meticulous in their surveillance?
Here
are some I found. Intentionally I have not added titles which are usual "construction" "composition".....There is a lot in common with Kandinsky and frankly
the period spent in Paris/France gave way to a very interesting artist.
Not revolutionary but certainly someone to follow. There are a lot of "have seen that before" and yet there is also something very appealing about his work. What do you think?
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