Untitled 2022

Editor: This piece is an untitled drawing by Alevtyna Kakhidze, made in 2022, with ink on paper. It looks like a page from a sketchbook, with a figure and some hand-lettered text in Russian. It feels very intimate, almost like eavesdropping on a private thought. What do you make of it? Curator: Oh, I love stumbling upon raw thoughts like this! To me, it feels like witnessing the artist grappling with a cultural icon - Tchaikovsky. See how the figure almost seems to be gesturing defensively, overshadowed by that cloud of text? Perhaps wrestling with the pressure, or even the futility, of trying to be original in the face of such a giant. Does the red underlining strike you as particularly emphatic? Editor: Yes, definitely. It almost looks like something crossed out or deemed incorrect. And the words themselves – "incomprehensible performances" – suggest a sense of frustration or perhaps alienation. Curator: Precisely! Maybe Kakhidze is poking fun at the very idea of high culture and our perceived need to understand it. What if she’s saying it’s okay *not* to get it? It’s a delightfully subversive act in a deceptively simple drawing. What resonates most with you? Editor: I like how the rawness of the materials – just ink on paper – mirrors the immediacy of the thought. It makes me feel like I am right there with the artist as she is working through her ideas. Curator: Absolutely! It's that unpretentious vulnerability that truly connects. Perhaps art isn't always about answers, but about daring to ask the questions aloud. It makes you wonder what was going through her head that day. I think it captures a universal sentiment of struggling for meaning.