Untitled 2022

Editor: So, this is Alevtyna Kakhidze’s "Untitled" drawing from 2022, done with ink and pen on paper. It looks like a page from a sketchbook. There’s a rough, intimate quality to it, almost like a visual diary entry. What do you make of this piece? Curator: What I see here is a snapshot of contemporary life refracted through the lens of political reality. Given Kakhidze’s Ukrainian background, and knowing that she often grapples with themes of displacement and conflict in her work, I am interested in the apparent juxtaposition of domestic intimacy with a world seemingly under threat, possibly evoked through the cryptic phrase "6.30 A.M." and the drawing of what could be animals flying over. How does the work relate to the concept of art as a witness? Editor: That's interesting – art as a witness. So, you're saying that the personal and the political are intertwined here? I guess the everyday scene becomes charged with tension when you consider the sociopolitical context. Curator: Precisely. Think about the tradition of artists documenting war and social upheaval. Does this drawing speak to that tradition? Is she making an assertion about the individual amidst larger geopolitical issues? What is her relationship to political action or expression? Editor: It does, in a way. It feels less like grand historical painting, more like a quiet observation. Perhaps this captures something lost in the more ‘official’ representations. Curator: Exactly! This drawing reflects her response to those major geopolitical issues by visualizing personal feelings as public gestures in her sketchbook, creating new relationships and forms through the very act of sketching. Is there any political message associated with sketchbooks, pen, and ink? Or is it meant as just an emotional connection for audiences? Editor: That's given me a new way to appreciate it, by thinking of art's purpose not just as something aesthetic, but also social and maybe even… defiant, if that makes sense. Curator: It does. Art provides multiple paths for public conversation about a number of things: the role and potential influence of museums and galleries; socio-political conditions that might shape a given artwork; even who has the power to collect art in the first place.