Urbanautica Institute is proud to present a solo exhibition by Georg Katstaller. The exhibition will take place from April 5th to May 5th, 2019, in TBC ART Gallery (Tbilisi, Georgia), and will be featured in the official program of KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO Festival. Curated by Polina Shubkina (Urbanautica Institute's contributing editor for the past 3 years), the exhibition brings together a body of work exploring the history and cultural narratives of Georgia. We ask her to introduce us to the show.
Born in Salzburg, Austria, Georg Katstaller has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout Europe. Much of his work deliberately eschew the traces of human presence centering instead on the mountainscapes of Austria or the abandoned pre-war architecture of Germany and Russia. Through haunting, figureless images Katstaller both documents the march of history and meditates on the ephemeral and melancholic nature of human existence.
© Georg Katstaller, 'Intending Georgia', 2019
Have you worked on joint projects before?
P.S.: This is our first time collaborating on an exhibition. Initially, we started working together on organizing Georg's photographic archive. I spent last summer looking at the thousands of photos he’s taken over the past 7 years. Having previous curatorial experience, I immediately saw that there was the material here for a remarkable exhibition. I began putting the images into various categories, and with Georg’s help, the shape of an exhibit examining the Georgian landscape emerged.
What is ‘Intending Georgia’ all about?
P.S.: Georg’s artistic practice involves mountaineering, which in many ways becomes the organizing metaphor for the entire installation sequence. Works included in the exhibition represent a holistic view of Georgian culture, examining multiple periods of the country's development. His art tends to the neglected historical monuments of Georgian architecture as though tending to an overlooked mountain trail.
© Georg Katstaller, 'KOMBINATI', 2016
«Georgian mountains, wild, unknown and so fantasized about, they combine beauty and harshness of the old times.
The Caucasus Studies, my quest for distance, the absence of human presence but also for the imagery and beliefs related to its pursuit. These photographs are the result of long, extensive hikes when I let ideas flow freely inside my mind as I experience the world around me.»
© Georg Katstaller, 'Intending Georgia', 2019
The exhibition comprises eighteen pieces developed from the photographic series since 2016. The opening piece sets up the image of Georgia as a mountain landscape that needs to be explored, not neglected. It leads the viewer into a monumental installation, which I think raises important questions about our recent conception of nationalism and the nation. The overpowering image of the mountain sets the tone for the rest of the installation as Georg seeks to challenge how Georgian cultural narrative has traditionally been deployed. His work asks what international artistic thought can contribute to Georgia and what Georgia can contribute to humanity’s understanding of itself.
«We explore what we do not know or do not fully understand, and that is perhaps what makes me explore places. I’m severely affected by my background in architecture, being far more concerned with space, figure and scale than, the visual storytelling. I am drowned to photograph areas that are somewhat marginalized or overlooked.
This body of work contributes to a historical and cultural dialogue that simultaneously informs and challenges viewers to consider issues affecting our global society. My motivation was not to preserve these structures but to archive the changing face of Georgia.»
© Georg Katstaller, 'KOMBINATI', 2016
The sequence combines landscape and architecture photography, in particular, images of abandoned constructions from various periods of the country's history. What do they mean in the context of this exhibition?
P.S.: The depiction of ruin through the medium of photography has played an essential role in the recording of world events. Throughout history, abandoned architectural structures have symbolized lost knowledge, memory, the transience of humanity and the possibilities of the future. Photographs of ancient ruins function as historical documents and feed a broader cultural need to understand ancient societies. Ancient ruins help us define the past, but it is the contemporary ruin that informs the present most urgently. While the ruins of antiquity may inspire a sense of romance for long distant past, the communist era ruin functions to some degree as a reminder of social failure.
© Georg Katstaller, 'Intending Georgia', 2019
© Georg Katstaller, 'Intending Georgia', 2019
«During the last two decades since acquiring independence, the former Soviet republic of Georgia has often appeared in the international news for all the wrong reasons. War, instability, corruption, and Stalin. But there is more to Georgia than that. Georgia is a somewhat unexplored subject artistically and photographically.»
© Georg Katstaller, 'KOMBINATI', 2016
«TODAY, MOST GEORGIANS ARE KEEN TO FORGET THEIR NATION’S COMMUNIST YEARS AND MOVE ON INTO THE 21ST CENTURY. BUT AS THEY DO, THE MONOLITHS OF THE FORMER REGIME STILL CAST DOWN LONG SHADOWS FROM CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS.»
© Georg Katstaller, 'KOMBINATI', 2016
Why Katstaller does work with film?
P.S.: Most of his photographs are the result of long, extensive hikes, often very dangerous. Preferring to work with film (medium and 35mm) adds a further level of obstructions to his already uneasy task of scoping for remote mountain locations. In this way, he suggests that making art should be a struggle, just as mountaineering is. I regard his photography as an individual act of Romanticism, driven by the hope that an idealized humanless landscape can shake the foundations of the reality we live in and open a passage towards a different future.
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LINKS
Georg Katstaller
TBC Art Gallery
KOLGA Tbilisi Photo Festival
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