Levan Songulashvili|No-Self ina Transparent Palace

No-Self in a Transparent Palace Online only exhibition by Levan Songulashvili on the ARTLAND See More: Curator: Domenico De Chirico Jyne9, 2020- Oct.6, 2021 Levan Songulashvili's work has always been suspended in a sort of liminal state of being. The depth of his research is indefinable and everything is intrinsically connected to another. At first glance the main feature of Songulashvili's works is their organicity, the color strokes almost seem to be mixed with saliva, and one seems to see and feel the biological aspect of the work even if nothing organic is actually present in it. This human aspect, animal, or even better, natural, further widening the artist's research field towards infinity, means that the work is full of both sensitivity and strength. The coexistence of these two aspects occurs because of the fragility of the organic being and its mutability as well as the power of nature and its internal rules. Rising from the organic, the work appears to be built upon a complex system of stratification. Here the analysis of the emergence of individual identity, of consciousness, of the relationship between consciousness and unconscious, of the interrelation between multiple consciousnesses, of the cyclicity of life and the fluidity of being – constitute levels that are difficult to place in specific positions but rather merge into each other. Such a path cannot be separated from what follows, that is, from the investigation into the future of human nature, therefore, the questions that arise between the concept of humanity and scientific evolution. It cannot be separated from its ever-increasing goals, as well as the uncertainty of the possibility of the permanence of human beings in this world as it now appears before our eyes. It is therefore an exceptional moment like that of a present distorted by an alarming pandemic in progress – or that caused by COVID-19 – in which everything acquires a new light, or, better put, the light begins to incorporate different angles that facilitate a more complete vision of aspects of individual and collective interest, that nourishes this exhibition. The future today is even more vague and this state of affairs has led Songulashvili to the production of a series of works that offer an in-depth investigation of individual conscience, subjected in this period to significant moments of self-reflection. Everything is now more than ever connected to another and there is a real individual and collective nakedness. And here all those ambiguous and liminal forms of Songulashvili take shape by whispering the formless result of a fusion given by the absolute transparency of the present, in which individuality is closely connected and part of a whirling and balanced whole at the same time. Red Horizons | Idem et idem At first glance the main feature of Songulashvili's works is their organicity, the color strokes almost seem to be mixed with saliva, and one seems to see and feel the biological aspect of the work even if nothing organic is actually present in it. This human aspect, animal, or even better, natural, further widening the artist's research field towards infinity, means that the work is full of both sensitivity and strength. The coexistence of these two aspects occurs because of the fragility of the organic being and its mutability as well as the power of nature and its internal rules. Rising from the organic, the work appears to be built upon a complex system of stratification. Here the analysis of the emergence of individual identity, of consciousness, of the relationship between consciousness and unconscious, of the interrelation between multiple consciousnesses, of the cyclicity of life and the fluidity of being – constitute levels that are difficult to place in specific positions but rather merge into each other. No-Self in a Transparent Palace An exceptional moment like that of a present distorted by an alarming pandemic in progress – or that caused by COVID-19 – in which everything acquires a new light, or, better put, the light begins to incorporate different angles that facilitate a more complete vision of aspects of individual and collective interest, that nourishes this exhibition. The future today is even more vague and this state of affairs has led Songulashvili to the production of a series of works that offer an in-depth investigation of individual conscience, subjected in this period to significant moments of self-reflection. Everything is now more than ever connected to another and there is a real individual and collective nakedness. And here all those ambiguous and liminal forms of Songulashvili take shape by whispering the formless result of a fusion given by the absolute transparency of the present, in which individuality is closely connected and part of a whirling and balanced whole at the same time. Domenico de Chirico, 2020 Levan Songulashvili (b. 1991) is a Georgian-born New York-based visual artist; painter, draughtsman, installation and multimedia video artist. Award-winning works and multimedia installations are shown in art galleries, private collections, and museums worldwide, including the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Museum and The Rustaveli National Theater. He have collaborated with Turner Prize-winning artist – Jeremy Deller, American rock star – Iggy Pop, Japanese fashion designer – Issey Miyake, photographer – Yuriko Takagi, composer – Giya Kancheli; Work has been exhibited alongside pieces by Egon Schiele, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marina Abramović, Spencer Tunick, Yoko Ono, Odd Nerdrum, among others. Songulashvili began painting in early childhood. At the age of 19, after the artist’s solo show in Georgia, he was invited to Germany as part of the art project. The western culture, German and French philosophy and psychoanalysis has influenced the young artist’s world view, and he proceeded to new creative experiments and conceptual research on his return to Georgia, which was a beginning of a new stage in his art. At the age of 21, he won several merit scholarships and art prizes and became the first Georgian artist who earned his Master’s (M.F.A.) degree with honors from The New York Academy of Art (founded by Andy Worhol) in Painting. After graduation he was TA for ‘Art & Culture’ MFA course at the same university.  In 2018, the artist’s works were presented in the group exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts ahead of the venue’s 250th anniversary and ‘Art Geneve’, Switzerland, followed by his art residency show in Berlin, Germany. The idea of mutability and possession of an independent sense of emergent identity is of great concern to Songulashvili, particularly as it relates to the recent re-emergence of Georgia as an independent and autonomous state in 1991 — the year of the artist’s birth.