Georgian artist delivers lecture in Baku

Baku, February 22 (AzerTAc). Georgian painter, curator and activist Vato Tsereteli has delivered a lecture with co-organization of YARAT! Contemporary Art Space and the Azerbaijan Ministry of Youth and Sports supported by the YUG State Theater. According to yarat.az, since 2000 Mr.Vato Tsereteli, a Georgian painter in cooperation with a group of colleagues has been working on initiatives introduction in art, shaping a fundamentally new space for discussion and education. It was precisely Tbilisi Contemporary Art Center that became a goodly endeavor since its establishment in fall 2010. A new and independent entity was rather of “alternate” nature than any other entity of this kind, be it an art space or an underground gallery. At that very moment, post-Soviet Georgia didn`t have any specific social models which could have generated a combination of public and private, in other words, civil initiatives. Simply, both the State and the underground community were set apart from each other in regard of art. The lecture delivered by Mr. Vato Tsereteli covered not only establishment and activities issues of the Contemporary Art Center, but also played a role of a presentation tool of the upcoming “Offside Effect” project. International experience in art-related educational programs underlies the project proposed and the project demonstrates a vivid contrast to routine approach widely applied in public educational system. Vato Tsereteli is a painter, photographer, curator and art manager; he is also a founder of Caucasian Center for Cultural Development and “Kumbo” Group (a space freely governed by painters). He was studying cinematography in Tbilisi and photographing in Academy of Art in Antwerp, Belgium. He acted as both a participant and a curator in numerous art projects in Georgia and abroad; he represented Georgia at Venice Biennale in 2009 and 2011 as well. Most recently, he founded the first ever Georgian Contemporary Art Center, an educational, research and exhibition platform for painters and other art actors.