UNICEF Literary Discussion: Social Issues in Modern Geo Art
A discussion as to what extent social issues and problems are reflected in contemporary Georgian art was held at the Writer’s House on Monday, within the UNICEF 70th Anniversary celebration week’s literary campaign.
Writers Giorgi Kekelidze, film critic Teo Khatiashvili, and artist Mariam Natroshvili each in their respective fields, literature, film and visual arts, introduced how social themes are presented in contemporary art and discussed whether art addresses or reveals the social problems that our society faces today. The discussion was moderated by writer David Gabunia.
In Giorgi Kekelidze’s opinion, both assumptions- that writers or artists in general should be interested in covering social themes, and that they don’t necessarily have to point them out in their works -are legitimate, and, with regards to the history of Georgian Arts, particularly of the 20th century, both hypothesis are present.
“Ilia Chavchavadze is probably the most visible example of how a writer can make social themes central to his work,” said Kekelidze during his presentation, highlighting that there are symbolists who protest writing about the reality around them and try to run from it.
“The main point is that the quality of the literary work has to be good. It doesn’t matter whether or not it reflects social issues. Whether it’s social realism of Soviet literature or the writers groups that emerged in the 90s, it all depends on the actual context and back then social themes were always linked with the political processes, especially in our country,” Kekelidze said, going on to discuss literary trends and tendencies of the 90s in Georgia in more depth.
“Irakli Charkviani and Kote Kubaneishvili formed a “Reactive Club” whose works at that time could be seen as most socially active, alongside other Georgian writers- Shota Iatashvili, Giorgi Lobjabidze, and Zviad Ratiani -whose works, literary visions or tastes were radically different from each other but who represented the same generation of writers who were, while not directly touching on social themes in their works, writing about everyday life and thus could be linked to the topic of social themes reflected in writings.”
However, as Kekelidze said, social issues never prevailed in Georgian poetry.
“The lack of an author who could influence society and readers like they did in the 19th century is already a sign of modern times.”
An interesting tendency was underlined during the discussion that women are more and more actively represented on the Georgian art scene, bringing social problems to the fore, and often talking about subjects that were overlooked in the past.
“This is now quite a trend,” Teo Khatiashvili said in her presentation on Georgian cinema. “A historical perspective was taken and saw us trying to examine the reasons why there was a certain distancing from social themes in Georgian cinema. It started to develop more from the 1990s, both with and without a social theme as a focus.”
Mariam Natroshvili rounded up the discussion by showcasing foreign and Georgian artists, painters who actively add social components to their works through various art projects.
Nino Gugunishvili