Performance
One-Drop Reminder
Performance by Andria Dolidze & Keta Gavasheli in collaboration with Zurab Babunashvili/Zesknel
Saturday, August 19, 2023
7.30 PM
Ballhaus (Nordpark), Kaiserswerther Str. 380, 40474 Düsseldorf
Doors: 7 pm
The performance will be held in English and Georgian.
With their performance One-Drop Reminder, Andria Dolidze and Keta Gavasheli have worked with musician Zurab Babunashvili to create a transformative installation space in which poetic text and ritual sound improvisations combine to seemingly dissolve the borders between the intimate and the public and the visible and invisible. Keying into a Georgian superstition that a dream told in the presence of water will be carried far away, a person describes their personal thoughts while stood in front of a washbasin. The monologue becomes a ritual retelling, a healing exploration of personal experiences—as if the words spoken were being swallowed up by the drain and carried through the plumbing before being finally diluted into some larger body of flowing water.
The performance One-Drop Reminder is taking place in conjunction with the group exhibition Calling at the Kunstverein, which brings together artists with different backgrounds in music, theatre, performance, and visual arts, to reflect upon the profound ritualistic meaning of our material environment, and to think of objects as intermediaries between the physical and immaterial realms. Calling presents historical loans by Moki Cherry and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for the first time in Germany, bringing them into dialogue with works by Lisa Alvarado, Lizzi Bougatsos, Beverly Buchanan, Michael Buthe, Melike Kara, Mark Leckey, Sarah Pucci, Stefan Tcherepnin, Paul Thek, and Gisèle Vienne.
Andria Dolidze (b. 1988 in Tbilisi, GEO, lives and works in Düsseldorf) is currently studying at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf under Ellen Gallagher and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. In his paintings and installations, he combines botanical and organic forms to create images in which figuration and abstraction blend into a specific language. The deliberate intervention with water transforms the monochromatic surface of Dolidze’s works into a tapestry of dense lines, blurring and distorting the once bold strokes, leaving behind remnants of his original intent.
Keta Gavasheli (b. 1990 in Tbilisi, GEO, lives and works in Düsseldorf) studied architecture at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. Since 2018 she has been studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Ellen Gallagher. Central to Gavasheli’s artistic endeavor is a profound understanding of the transformative nature of bodies and to open up boundaries which do not seem permeable at first. Her installations create portals to an alternate dimension and invite contemplation. Gavasheli’s artistic practice often includes performances in which she interweaves fragments of language, both spoken and written, accompanied by sound.
Zurab Babunashvili is a Georgian musician with multiple artistic identities. Apart from making electronic music and concentrating on intuitive, in-the-moment live soundmaking with his Zesknel alias, in recent years Babunashvili has been actively participating in theatre, “radio plays” and art performances. Whether through local Georgian acquaintances, Mutant Radio’s online presence or club Bassiani’s techno-oriented endeavours, Babunashvili’s work is seeking meaning and understanding through intuitive and ritualistic sound improvisations and collaborations with people from different backgrounds.
Photo: Melanie Zanin