Instead of an introduction: when the world goes mad, what can art do?
How can we analyze artistic practices of performative and institutional critique in contemporary Georgia through the theoretical framework of revolt? This question has become increasingly urgent, as reflections on art are shaped by the direct experience of protest. The current wave of global protests transforms crisis into a force for resisting the status quo, prompting reflection on how the collective will for change emerges alongside individual freedom. Can we still frame the collective and the individual as a dichotomy, as the political agendas of the twentieth century suggested in neoliberal or authoritarian regimes? Georgia’s hybrid condition shaped by its position between East and West, provides a particularly significant context. The recent wave of protests, which intensified at the end of November 2024 following rigged elections, is not a sudden phenomenon. These events are the culmination of deep, long-standing existential cataclysms within Georgian society. Georgia’s recent, often painful, transitional history–from April 9, 1989, to the present–has been fraught with severe contradictions. The intensification of crises caused by hierarchical power structures, political instability, and social polarization has been building for years. Art, though often fragmentary and sporadic, has reflected these struggles.
Creative thought, as reflective and rebellious, historically has been seen as an essential tool for disrupting and questioning dominant power structures. And now, when we seem to be closest to globalized violence, where war once again serves as a strategy for power exploitation and the destruction of the world by dominant forces, what kind of tool might art have? In an age where artistic practices are increasingly commodified, influenced by corporate and political interests, and often manipulated or silenced by media and institutional power, it is worth questioning whether art can still maintain its capacity to function as a truthful demonstration of resistance or stripped of its potential for real transformation?
Georgia’s history, deeply rooted at the crossroads of Eastern and Western cultures, and its experience of seventy years under Soviet rule, followed by the ongoing creeping occupation of Russia since 2011, add further layers of complexity to the discourse of resistance. In this context, artistic rebellion in Georgia has historically been more exploratory and reflective, rather than direct and politically confrontational. Even in recent years, general understanding art as an apolitical phenomenon has remained common locally. Georgia does not have a long history of socially engaged art practices, that have been less transgressive than in Eastern Europe. This phenomenon can be contextualized through the work of philosopher Keti Chukhrov, [1] whose research critiques the systematic changes and socio-cultural complexities of post-Soviet spaces [2]. The Soviet past is coupled with ongoing geopolitical struggles in Georgia, and step by step has started to re-shape a form of resistance that was often subtle, nuanced, and indirect. However, as right-wing “pseudo-nationalistic populism” becomes increasingly normalized across various region(s), this resistance faces new challenges. The term “pseudo-nationalistic” is used deliberately here to highlight how nationalist rhetoric is often instrumentalized for populist agendas while paradoxically reinforcing pro-Russian influence. The plural form “region(s)” indicates a broader trend—not confined to Georgia alone, but symptomatic of a global drift toward authoritarian populism cloaked in nationalist discourse. In many ways, Georgia’s current struggles mirror those of other Eastern European countries, where patterns of authoritarianism, censorship, and the suppression persists. In countries like Hungary and Slovakia, similar tendencies can be observed, though without the direct involvement of Russia in the local politics. In this critical reality art might continue to have the potential to engage with these persisting structures of oppression, serving as a critical space for resistance by both reflecting on and challenging existing power structures.
Contemporary visual art might be considered a process of questioning, reflecting, and reimagining. It is not a definitive statement but a space where assumptions are tested, societal structures are examined, and identity is continuously reshaped. At the same time, in the madness of growing socio-political instability worldwide influence of manipulative voices are growing. These voices—often linked to corporate interests, political agendas, or market-driven art systems—attempt to control the narrative and limit the potential for art to function as a tool for critique.
In recent years, the relationship between art and political revolt has reemerged as a critical concern within contemporary art discourse, particularly in regions marked by systemic violence, ideological repression, and postcolonial transitions. Earlier, during the 1930s, Walter Benjamin, in his essay The Author as Producer [3], discusses the author who moves beyond individual self-expression and reaches a state of social transformation. How does this phenomenon align with the mission of art today? Depending on the historical periods and crisis-driven tensions, can this state of “author as transformer” be perceived effective? Is creative thought itself a form of rebellion? Creative thought, which not only responds to the laws of aesthetics but is also closely reflective of the surrounding reality from which it emerges, plays a crucial role in this discourse.
This article situates selected recent artistic practices of protest and resistance in contemporary Georgia within a broader theoretical framework that intersects performative critique, institutional analysis, and philosophies of revolt. Artists as creative thinkers–are synthesizing the non-touchable immaterial experience, sensations into material or performative formation that is exposed to offer a new dimension, a new layer of generative rebellion. Political and geographical contexts play an essential role in shaping the theoretical frameworks within which these artistic practices manifest. Drawing on foundational texts such as Art as Demonstration: A Revolutionary Recasting of Knowledge by Sven Spieker [4] and Julia Kristeva’s Revolt, She Said [5], this article examines how protest-focused art engages resistance through performance, poetic gestures, and interventions in institutional spaces. Building on Kristeva’s concept of intimate revolt and Spieker’s framing of protest as a visual and performative act that disrupts dominant structures, the analysis considers how visual art operates as a site of transformation and cultural disruption. Kristeva emphasizes subjective, psychic, and symbolic disobedience against normative systems, while Spieker situates demonstration as a mode of contesting power through aesthetic action. While Spieker focuses on Western and Russian cultures in relation to art and demonstration, it is equally important to reactivate critical analysis from the so-called “peripheral territories”—such as Georgia—towards the “center.” This shift questions the hierarchies often embedded in global art criticism and highlights the gaps created by such categorizations. This article highlights some aesthetic strategies that resist hegemonic narratives and tries to reconfigure the public sphere and reflects on the self, the surroundings and the community. This analysis can be reclaimed as a generative form of revolt — not only to reimagine the traumatic dimensions of power and ideology, but also to confront the persistent fear of sliding back into conditions of oppression.
Artistic practices as forms of revolt in Georgia
In Art as Demonstration: A Revolutionary Recasting of Knowledge, Sven Spieker offers a critical perspective for understanding artistic protest as an aesthetic strategy that challenges and reconfigures public space. To “demonstrate” is to engage in visual and performative interventions—acts of bodily presence, spatial disruption, and symbolic occupation—that challenge dominant systems. This perspective frames demonstration as an aesthetic mode of resistance: a practice of making visible the tensions and contradictions embedded within structures of power.
This theoretical approach we can apply in the performance Independence Memorial (2019) by multimedia artist Andro Dadiani (Fig. 1, 2). This performance remains an emotional symbol and active critique of Georgia’s socio-political crises. Dadiani presented a fragile, damaged, and seemingly mutilated body positioned as a “memorial” on a broken table in front of the government’s Chancellery building. According to the artist’s manifesto, this body symbolized the amputated state of Georgia, continuously subjected to Russia’s creeping occupation. The broken table served as a dual symbol: a representation of fractured land and a critique of Georgian social traditions. While a table is traditionally a site of interaction and unity in Georgian culture, here it became a lifeless, destructive prop—exposing the social crises plaguing the nation. It stands as an act of existential rebellion, expressing the fractured identity and unhealed wounds of the Georgian state. A defining characteristic of Independence Memorial is its static fixation—preserved today through photo documentation. Even years later, the intensity and relevance of the work resonate to the ongoing struggles and a vivid artistic response to existential and political crises in Georgia.
A significant parallel intersecting with the social dimensions of rebellion in recent Georgian art can be found in the performances of the Bouillon Group, including one of their latest works, Weightlifting Strategies, staged in front of the Parliament in 2023—precisely at the moment when the so-called “Russian law” sparked mass protests in Tbilisi (Fig. 3).
The performance title metaphorically refers to resisting the weight of political dominance and authoritarian pressure. The “Russian law”—a proposed bill on “foreign influence”—was seen as a replica of Russian legislation aimed at silencing independent, critical voices, prompting a wave of resistance in which the artists’ active involvement played a highly significant role. In particular, this performance, rich with sharp, static, and expressive imagery, powerfully critiques the mechanisms of force demonstratively wielded by the ruling power against the people. The centerpiece of the performance—the chair—emerges as a potent symbol. Artists, dressed in formal clothing, stand motionless on chairs for several minutes, a gesture that embodies the incompetence of those in power. This seemingly simple act transforms the chair from an ordinary object into a profound critique. Here, the chair symbolizes hierarchical domination, while the artists’ immobilized bodies underscore the political stagnation. The stark contrast between the performers’ static presence and the vibrant, dynamic backdrop of the city and its citizens creates a visual metaphor for resistance.
In the works of both the Bouillon Group and Andro Dadiani, the body and the institution emerge as two opposing, yet equally powerful, forces. The artists’ activation of their bodies against the backdrop of strategic state institutions (such as the Chancellery or Parliament) gives the facades of these structures a stronger symbolic significance. The artist’s body transforms into a site of opposition to institutional power.
Beyond physical performances, institutional criticism in Georgian art has also found expression in verbal and textual manifestations. A recent example is the installation The Warring City Does Not Apologize at the Gori Art House (Fig. 4). This municipal building, once abandoned and filled with garbage, was transformed into a modern art space by a group of local photographers. Their efforts culminated in critical inscriptions on the walls—bold, uncompromising statements that elicited a strong backlash from the ruling authorities. The organizers faced censorship, and the young team that spearheaded this cultural decentralization project now risks being forced to vacate the building.
Situated in Gori, a city long overshadowed by its association with Stalin’s birthplace and marked by a complex historical legacy, this initiative plays a crucial role in recontextualizing the city’s identity. By establishing a contemporary art space with an alternative vision in Gori, a city scarred by war in 2008, has set an important precedent for experimental artistic expression and civic engagement, it opens new possibilities for artistic practice beyond the capital, highlighting the power of art as a form of resistance.
Parallel with the censorship controversy surrounding the Gori Art House installation, another significant action was the bold intervention by artist Sandro Sulaberidze in 2023, which sparked widespread debate. During the exhibition Self-Portrait at the Mirror, Sulaberidze removed his own artwork and replaced it with the inscription, “Art is alive and independent” (Fig. 5.). This simple yet powerful phrase continues to echo as a kind of collective mantra – “Georgia is alive and independent.” The National Gallery, one of Georgia’s most historically significant institutions, became the site of this act, and the inscription on its wall was promptly “protected” by a police presence. This event exposed numerous institutional and sectoral vulnerabilities while also disrupting the entire exhibition. Curator of this exhibition, Ketevan (Keti) Shavgulidze faced immediate scrutiny and police interrogation, while Sulaberidze himself had to fend off absurd accusations from the investigation. This act triggered extensive debate, highlighting issues of institutional fragility, censorship, and the intersection of art with political authority. What stands out most is the police’s heavy-handed response to this act of institutional criticism, which now feels hauntingly relevant in a society where the phrase “Police everywhere, justice nowhere” has become a rallying cry. In this context, art assumes the role of an exposing mirror, reflecting the entrenched injustices and power imbalances within society.
Psycho-emotional dimension of revolt and shared need of transformation
In Revolt, She Said, Julia Kristeva conceptualizes rebellion as a cyclical, psycho-social process of reflection, transformation, and renewal—an internal state rather than a mere reaction to external conditions. She criticizes superficial experience and nostalgia, emphasizing rebellion as a continuous engagement with introspection and the search for new forms of subjectivity. For Kristeva, revolt is an ongoing process that redefines the self and society. Kristeva’s analysis reveals an existential dimension within the psycho-emotional layer of rebellion. This perspective consistently questions established norms, disrupts self-sufficient certainties, and seeks new possibilities for meaning and freedom. In today’s reality, where art–emerging from the unpredictable and harsh conditions of a brutal reality–is not merely a reflective but a generative act of expressing freedom, it assumes a different mission. Its role extends beyond the aesthetic or formal mode of representing the world, becoming an unconditional embodiment of resistance. As art historian and curator Ketevan Shavgulidze notes in her recent interview: “In such a difficult situation, I see the artist as a bridge builder—someone who transcends their individual experiences to become a connector. Art may not have the ability to end or stop the crisis, but it holds the potential to engage people in the process.”[6]
A recent example that evokes this sensibility is Conspiracy Bar–apartment exhibition by multidisciplinary collective Around Studio organized by Kunsthalle Tbilisi. (Fig. 6) This work, shaped by the raw, fragile, and brutal aesthetics of protest, incorporated objects and atmospheres reminiscent of barricades built during current demonstrations and police crackdowns on Rustaveli (central protest area of Tbilisi). The space, a living house—half-abandoned and frozen in time—reflects a transition from one room to another, where the atmosphere of everyday life merges with the intimate space of the home. The brutalist elements are disarmed, giving shape to a new conceptual design, where the rebellious ethos of street protest is transformed. Rather than glorifying resistance, the installation raises a critical, almost self-reflective question: Can the aestheticization of political struggle remain emotionally and ethically grounded, or does it risk losing its transformative core? It is worth mentioning that this exhibition does not typically offer a viewer’s display of observation. Beyond seeing, the space reactivated a shared sense of experience. The exhibition invited the viewer to engage with the transient nature of meaning, where the process of spatial realization became as important as its content, emphasizing collective sensation over isolated individual expression. Activated with the public program Conspiracy Bar became a shared space for safe gathering, discussion, and reflection—encouraging a community of solidarity and critical thought. This model of apartment exhibitions, which first emerged during the Soviet times as a form of Non-conformist, Unofficial Art, in Georgia evolved during the crisis of the 1990s and appears today in a different form—supporting communal experimental practices and expressing a shared will for change.
Another important example, which in my opinion unifies Kristeva’s idea of transformation and the psycho-sensual understanding of revolt, with Spieker’s active “demonstrational” aspect of artistic oeuvre and common sense, is the site-specific light installation Memories Yet To Be Digested, Sandro Sulaberidze’s recent work (May 2025) (Fig. 7, 8). Presented by the Obscura platform within the artist-run space Kurorti—located in a communal residential house in Tbilisi—this installation is another significant example. Kurorti (resort– in English) functions both as a workshop and an informal exhibition space, hosting various experimental initiatives and fostering a communal environment for shared artistic practices. Sulaberidze’s installation created a spatial experience using laser lights—a reference to tactics used by protesters during street demonstrations to confuse surveillance cameras. As the artist describes, the installation is “an impulse that transforms immediate impressions into memory.” This work not only transformed the space but also activated it as a site for reflection, offering a layered commentary on the protest experience and the intersection of resistance and collective memory. The work transforms laser light into a transgressive visual element, referring to the larger changes currently demonstrated in the streets of Tbilisi.
Thus, the value of this kind of art—often amorphous, spontaneous, emotional, interpretive, open, and influential—lies in its ability to spark continuous reflection and challenge the viewer’s perception. In a world where voices of manipulation and control constantly attempt to shape the narrative, art’s role as a space for resistance, as providing a platform for dialogue, critical questioning, and the refreshing of ideas that may otherwise remain stagnant is more important than ever. It embodies a value of tolerance, and solidarity which holds the meaning that it is essential for being in relation, rather than remaining “out of zone.” The message reminds us of Nicolas Bourriaud’s [7] concept of relational aesthetics, where art becomes more activating as it fosters connection and engagement within shared experiences.
The public space and the energy of collective force, the pursuit of integrity, often intensify in the uncertain environment filled with doubt and fear. In this context, shaped by crisis and the pressure of an unjust reality, the inner axis becomes clearer–the “central pillar.” In Georgian architectural-spatial culture, the central pillar (literally, mother pillar) supports the entire structure, distributes force, and establishes spatial verticality. This internal force of strength and resilience is translated into a spatial, archetypal medium in the contemporary context by artist Irina Jibuti. Her installation Clay Pillar presented at Kurorti was not just an object but an energetically charged temporary structure, layered with different levels of clay (Fig. 9, 10). The tactility of a clay medium reflects the changing environment, acting as a reflection of the crisis of stability, emerging from the collective inner axis. Approaching this work felt like returning to inner stability, symbolizing the collective response to crisis through shared internal strength.
Thinking about the force and resilience of the inner axis, it reminds me performative, bodily, and spatial work Stand created a year ago by architect and artist, Natalia Nebieridze – member of collective Material Hunters in collaboration with her mother, artist Bella Romelashvili (Fig. 11, 12). This performance, set in a sterile white gallery space, brought forth the archetypal power of care and the bond of motherhood, transforming it into a political act. Two distinct bodies, united in an embrace create a balance—not driven by pathos, but as the axis of the world that embodies humanity, justice, care, and endurance. This act reflects maternal empathy, the eternal struggle with life’s transience, and human resilience. The space becomes grounded in solidarity, returning to the central inner axis through quiet encouragement. This performance, part of Nebieridze’s trilogy, explores interactions with family members (artist’s daughter, her mother and father) and offers a clear internal orientation. These works provide insights into the political, social, and critical dimensions of human relationships, where the body becomes a manifesto and art is activated through shared experience and empathy.
In conclusion, the artistic practices explored in this article highlight how contemporary Georgian art engages with the psycho-emotional and social dimensions of revolt, serving as processes of reflection, transformation, and collective resistance. In the face of an intensifying political climate, artists and citizens must remain united in the fight against autocratic power, continuously declaring: “Fire the Oligarchy.” Art, as a powerful force of rebellion, remains essential in the struggle for justice, freedom, and independence. An individual vision of self-expression in art cannot be overshadowed by egocentric or self-hedonistic recreation, which neoliberal discourse often supports and consumes. I believe such critical moments can mark a new era in which artistic creativity expands human experience, fostering collective strength, social connection, and a non-destructive, resistant form of revolt.
Mariam Shergelashvili (M.A. Art History and Theory) is a curator, independent researcher, based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Since 2013, she has been working in the State Silk Museum, while also leading independent cross-disciplinary projects. Mariam’s research practice is driven by curiosity and a desire to question established modes of seeing, combining academic rigor with experimentation and a multidisciplinary approach. She is the founder of the curatorial platform unarchived semiotics and the initiator of TANKHMOVANI, a social art project on noise pollution and urban soundscapes. She is also the editor‑in‑chief of ZE_Gavlena, a digital art magazine about Georgian Visual Art. She is the author and co-editor of several publications and academic papers focusing on contemporary art, cultural memory, and institutional critique. The latest 15th edition of ZE_Gavlena was dedicated to the theme Art as Resistance, exploring protest practices, symbolic revolt, and subversive aesthetics in the Georgian art scene.
[1] Keti Chukhrov, “Epistemological Gaps between the Former Soviet East and the ‘Democratic’ West,” syg.ma (December 2021).
[2] Keti Chukhrov, “Anatomy of Georgian Protests,” e-flux Notes (March 2023).
[3] Walter Benjamin, Author as Producer, trans. Anna Bostock (London: Verso, 1998).
[4] Sven Spieker, Art as Demonstration: A Revolutionary Recasting of Knowledge (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2024).
[5] Julia Kristeva, Revolt, She Said, trans. Brian O’Keeffe (Los Angeles: Semiotext/e/, 2002).
[6] Ketevan (Keti) Shavgulidze, “Power of Protest – Art as Resistance,” ZE GAVLENA, no.1 5(December 2024):24.
[7] Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, trans. Simon Pleasance & Fronza Woods with the participation of Mathieu Copeland (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2002).
