BEYOND
Nino Kvrivishvili
20.1 - 28.1.2017
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Bilder: Robi Hai
In the exhibition «Beyond» Nino Kvrivishvili presents a series of new works that refer to the history of people working in silk factories in times of industrial revolution in Switzerland. At the same time, it addresses her biographical connection and artistic interest to this topic in Soviet Georgia. In her exhibition Soviet Rainbow – From Textile Shop to Museum at State Silk Museum in Tbilisi NK was working with a similar theme considering the subject of this particular museum’s history and its relation to Georgian silk and Soviet textile industry.
Inspired by the history of textile factory workers during mass industrialization and draw the visual language of the industrial architecture, the artist creates a new series of abstract silk paintings, which depict the stories of families, bear traces and narrate of people’s lives.
The silk industry which played an important role in the history of Switzerland, was mostly employed by females. They worked 14 hours a day under hard conditions with low wages. They produced the precious silk themselves, but at the same time they could neither afford the living needs nor take care of the families. For the artist silk curtains are symbolic depiction of women’s real life, hopes, dreams at that time. Curtains have also another meaning: They split parts to the side and identify the different spaces symbolizing the hidden reality beyond.
The presented “window curtains” differ radically from real, but at the same time they can be identified easily by viewer through their materiality and repetitive patterns. The artist intentionally chooses to use silk as material for her work thus making a direct link to the industrial history of Switzerland.