Eight years after her death, the Belvedere 21 in Vienna is organizing a retrospective of Tamuna Sirbiladze, an artist who grew up and attended the academy in Tbilisi, Georgia, and came to Vienna in 1997 for further study, where she subsequently stayed. Sirbiladze died at the age of 45 from cancer, a biographical fact that is hard to ignore when visiting the exhibition, especially toward the end, where the work from her later years is displayed, created as an ode to her young children and also to a childlike way of drawing or painting. The works made with oil pastels are partly abstract but also depict natural motifs such as the pomegranate, a symbol referencing her homeland. The works were created with the awareness of her approaching death, a fact that is hard to forget.
However, the late works represent just one facet of an oeuvre that showcases various approaches to painting. In the preceding rooms, a series of works can be seen in which the artist enters into dialogue with historical painters she found interesting, such as Velázquez or Caravaggio, thus exercising her stylistic mobility. Earlier, she had engaged in dialogue with the work of Martin Kippenberger and Andy Warhol. There is a curiosity in the way Sirbiladze approaches and tries everything. Although not every result is equally interesting or unique, it comes across as authentic artistic exploration.
The works where Sirbiladze is most explicit and found her own voice were created between 2005 and 2009. By then, she had freed herself from (Soviet) conventions she grew up with, had gone through a period of experimenting with digital media, and returned to painting human figures, particularly women. At this point, she seems to hit her stride and make a breakthrough, reclaiming the female body from the male-dominated art history. In terms of content, she has a strong driving force: she determines how the woman is depicted. The works are quickly made, energetic, and bold. The titles sometimes indicate what they are about, such as Kotzen (2005), Suicide Painting (2007), and My Rapist (2006). In Unter den roten Sternen/Cubic Rubic (Communist) (2005), a woman is depicted sitting on a toilet. These are scenes where, in real life, the door would be locked, but here, transformed into the domain of painting, the door is opened. The artist succeeds in painting all of this without it necessarily coming across as provocation. The play of color and line gives the scenes a dynamic and lively effect. At the same time, the work contains a dimension of realism in the sense of: this is how it is, this is a woman’s body, or part of life as she perceived it, and that gives the work an almost factual persuasive power. During this period, Sirbiladze is stylistically free, and her work does not directly remind one of others.
The exhibition is titled Not Cool but Compelling, named after a 2011 drawing, which is an apt title for the artist’s attitude. Or at least, the exhibition presents an oeuvre that does not try to be cool but emerges from urgency and shifting interests. The fact that it sometimes becomes cool nonetheless is partly due to the current momentum, with attention to female perspectives and imagination. Just before her death, the artist had her first solo gallery show in New York, which could have been a breakthrough to a broader audience. That moment has now arrived in her adopted homeland of Austria, albeit posthumously.
The exhibition is curated by Sergey Harutoonian for Belverdere 21 in Vienna and is on view till 11 August 2024