"More than life"

“More than Life” is the first large-scale retrospective of the Russian-Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli in Great Britain, dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the author, which will be held at the Saatchi Gallery in London.

Located in four rooms of the Saatchi Gallery, the exhibition curated by Herve Mikaelov will present large-scale results of Zurab Tsereteli’s fruitful creative career, including works created under the influence of his long-standing meetings with world masters, including Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Robert Rauschenberg. As well as paintings, sculptures and enamels created over the artist’s long creative career, and archive videos dedicated to the life of Tsereteli. The author’s personal exhibitions dedicated to the anniversary will also be held in 2019 in Baku, Paris and Liechtenstein.

Zurab Tsereteli grew up in Soviet Georgia and learned to work in bronze, stone, glass, wood, enamel technique and mosaics, but only in the late 1960s. he began to receive widespread recognition and public orders. Combining the monumental approach in the images of children’s tales and dreams, archaeological and ethnographic symbolism with a powerful creative impulse, he stood out among the artists of his generation, which became especially noticeable with the gradual establishment in the cultural climate of the USSR of more free forms of artistic expression. Monumentality can be traced in his sculptures, executed by public order in different countries. Working on extensive projects that combine painting, sculpture and architecture, Tsereteli’s works can be found both in Russia and abroad: bright and large-scale monuments were erected in many cities, including London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome and Tokyo. Created in a monumental expressive manner, they express the idea of the importance of complete freedom in art.

The artist’s workshops are located in his native Tbilisi, Moscow, Paris and New York. The alternation of work in each of the four cities contributed to the formation of his individual style. Thanks to a meeting with Picasso and Chagall in 1946 in Paris, Tsereteli radically revised his understanding of the creative process. He was inspired by the ease with which these masters moved from painting and graphics to ceramics and sculpture. Picasso’s influence is evident in Inessa (1968), which he wrote shortly after visiting Picasso’s workshop in Paris. The famous Tsereteli sculpture “My Favorite Artists” (2009) represents Picasso, Modigliani, Chagall and Van Gogh, a year earlier he created sculptural images of Pirosmani and Henri Russo. The features of the creative method of Russian authors, whether abstract expressionism of Kandinsky or Suprematism of Malevich, are also evident in the rich palette of red and blue colors of Tsereteli. The artist was also noticeably influenced by the friendship with Robert Rauschenberg, with whom they wrote “I Done Aidan”, a portrait of Aidan Salakhova, created during Rauschenberg’s trip to Georgia and Russia in 1987-88. Tsereteli owns a place in the ranks of neo-expressionists, next to artists such as Fernando Botero, Arnaldo Pomodoro and Georg Baselitz.

Zurab Tsereteli - founder of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, president of the Russian Academy of Arts and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. In 1989, under the auspices of UNESCO, Tsereteli brought Mother Teresa to Georgia to create a permanent charity mission for her sisters in Tbilisi. He was awarded the title of Honored Artist of Georgia in 1967 and the highest recognition of the French Republic - the Legion of Honor in 2010.

ABOUT THE ARTIST.

Zurab Tsereteli was born in Tbilisi (Georgia) in 1934 and graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts> in 1958. Selected solo exhibitions: New Manege, Moscow (1998 and 2004), UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (2007), San Salvatore Museum, Rome (2011), Palazzo della Gran Guard, Verona (2016), Palace of Festivals and Congresses, Cannes (2017). In 1995, Zurab Tsereteli founded the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the first state museum in Russia devoted entirely to contemporary art, which officially opened in 1999. In 1997, Tsereteli was elected president of the Russian Academy of Arts. In 2001, the Zurab Tsereteli Art Gallery, which is part of the Russian Academy of Arts, opened in Moscow, and in 2012, the artist founded the Museum of Modern Art in Tbilisi. Zurab Tsereteli was declared UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador (2007), he is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg, Austria (2009), holder of the Order of the Legion of Honor of the French Government (2010), winner of the For Life in Art Award and Giuseppe International Award Sciacca from the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome (2011), the UNESCO Medal of the Five Continents (2014) and a member of the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts (2015).

ABOUT THE CURATOR

An independent art consultant and curator, Herve Mikaelov currently advises and creates curatorial projects for LVMH, which includes Louis Vuitton and Dior fashion houses, as well as Hennessy cognac house. He was born in France and in 1991, after graduating from the Louvre School in Paris, he began working at the Cartier Contemporary Art Fund and the Bank Deposit and Loan Office (CDC). Over the past few years, Herve Mikaelov has curated numerous international exhibitions, including the BIC Company Meeting at the Santcatre Exhibition Center, Paris (2018), Art on Stage, the main pavilion of Art Safari, Bucharest (2018), and the project Miss Dior ”in Shanghai (2014), the Azerbaijan Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013) and“ Futurology ”at the Garage Museum of Modern Art in Moscow (2010). In 2011, Herve Mikaelov became a holder of the Order of Arts and Literature from the French Ministry of Culture.