Georgian Artists Exhibited in Qatar

This autumn, a number of Georgian painters visited the State of Qatar, Western Asia, the first such visit to the Arabic world. The exhibition was named 'Expressing Space, New Art from Georgia' and was organized by the Cultural Village Foundation- Katara, the Georgian Embassy in Qatar and Vanda Gallery.

The ongoing aim is to popularize art from Georgia worldwide.

“One year ago, the Georgian embassy in Qatar contacted me and requested we hold the exhibition of Ali Dasmal Al-Kuwari, a young successful painter from Qatar, at our gallery,” Vanda Mujiri, co-founder of ‘Vanda’ Art Gallery told GEORGIA TODAY. “We gladly accepted. Together with the painter himself, Dr. Khalid Bin Ibrahim Al-Sulaiti, General Manager of the Cultural Village Foundation – Katara, a wealthy organization financing cultural events and the overall development of cultural ties, also visited Tbilisi. Having seen our gallery and collection of different painters, he promised to invite Georgian painters to Qatar”.

Ekaterine Meiering-Mikadze, Ambassador of Georgia to Qatar, is also very active in supporting cultural activities. To date, the Qatari population has already seen an exhibition of manuscripts from Georgia, as well as exhibits from the Georgian Arts & Culture Center, and been able to attend a concert by Nani Bregvadze.

Six Georgian painters and one sculptor were invited to Qatar: Alex Berdysheff, Gogi Chagelishvili, Levan Mindiashvili, Gia Gugushvili, Mamuka Tsetskhladze, Gogi Lazarashvili and sculptor George (Gia) Japaridze. “There were 54 paintings and nine sculptures in all. It was a huge exhibition which received full funding from the Qatari side,” Mujiri said. “Chagelishvili, Lazarashvili and Japaridze delivered workshops and were met with great interest and enthusiasm. 2,000 catalogues were printed and the opening saw the whole diplomatic corps and numerous representatives of international organizations in attendance. We tried to offer a spectrum of painters of different age and style. Around 7-8 works of each painter were represented. There was very broad coverage, including Al Jazeera and other press outlets”.

One of the priorities of Qatar is to raise the level of cultural education among a population which lives in luxury. It turned out that Georgia is very popular from the tourism point of view, as there were a lot of citizens of Qatar at the opening of the exhibition saying they had just visited Georgia.

Maka Lomadze