Untitled 2022

Curator: This untitled drawing by Alevtyna Kakhidze, made in 2022, presents us with a stark, almost aggressively direct visual statement. Editor: Yes, it grabs you immediately! My first thought is how… unapologetic it is. The rawness of the linework, the seemingly careless text… there's a deliberate tension between childlike execution and deeply serious subject matter. It’s like a visual shout. Curator: The work utilizes pen and ink, focusing on line as both structure and text. Notice how Kakhidze uses that "thin linework", creating dense areas of lettering mixed with illustrative figures and symbolic elements that point toward post-internet art. It seems quite concerned with the place of Russian culture and art in the current context. Editor: Precisely. There is an urgency to it—a refusal to be subtle. I love the cartoonish renderings of what I assume are Russian writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as though they were sitting atop Russian avant-garde and contemporary art and culture like a table or shelf. Then you have the accusatory language… is Russian culture looking for an alibi because it is not a killer? The West sign feels biting. Curator: I agree. It's not simply presenting Russian culture, but actively interrogating its role. Kakhidze makes us confront the loaded question of culture’s relationship to violence and culpability by bringing labor—writing, and art—into view with those statements of cultural purpose. She asks where Russian cultural forms stand and whether those forms should or can carry any culpability for war. The artist’s focus is shifted from the West onto her culture’s place in a world undergoing a sea change, brought on by the Russo-Ukranian war. Editor: And it's not just in the large lettering or the accusatory words; there’s also color. The tiny blues and reds look a great deal like Russian and Ukrainian flag colorations—that look especially pointed, given the statement by the author on the side. So, what do we make of a line drawing functioning as both accusation and memorial? Curator: By juxtaposing canonical figures of Russian literature, that textual imposition, with loaded symbols, Kakhidze prompts a complex meditation on national identity. It raises questions regarding the production of culture. Editor: Absolutely. The entire piece crackles with that uncomfortable energy. It’s not pretty, and it's not meant to be. Curator: Right, a challenge that keeps its political questions stark. Editor: Exactly, one that hits you like a manifesto scrawled on a wall.