We  are very pleased to present the first exhibition of Koka Ramishvili  (*1956 in Tbilisi, Georgia) in our gallery. Koka Ramishvili is one of  the most important artists from Georgia. In the 1980s he worked as an  artist in the theater collective Orpheus in Tbilisi for stage design,  lightings and props. This experience exerted a great influence on him  and encouraged him to work in an interdisciplinary way. Koka Ramishvili  uses different media for his art, photography, film, drawing, sculpture  and painting. In each of his exhibitions he negotiates different visual  issues.

For his show in Zurich, Koka Ramishvili  focuses on the concept of landscape representation: landscape as  installation and landscape as painting. He approaches the rendering of  landscape not only from a position of gravity, but also from a spherical  position. This approach is evident in the first room of the exhibition,  where one smaller and six larger works on paper hang under the  overarching title Horizon. Koka Ramishvili refers to this  sequence of images as a melody of landscape. The only work that features  a horizon line is the smaller sheet. This works shows a depiction of an  ancient Japanese drinking vessel, which contains in a metaphorical way  the essence of landscape representation in this series of works on  paper. 

In the second room hangs the painting Land,  for which Koka Ramishvili at first sight followed a more traditional  conception of landscape representation than in the works on paper in the  first room, namely the Renaissance idea that the painting represents a  view from a window. However, Koka Ramishvili breaks this notion of  perspective depth rendering by surrounding the landscape depiction on  three sides with a white border, thus he makes it clear that the picture  only pretends depth and always has a surface. 

By adding these three  marginal areas he also thematizes the choice of the image section. In  the group of Lost Landscape works, the notion of landscape moves  downward and from the second dimension to the third. The landscape is  painted three-dimensionally and in several layers of paint on wood,  which again in its materiality refers to landscape. Koka Ramishvili  achieves the luminous effect of these sculptural works by painting a  varnish made on an amber base onto the color surface. The  cardboard models on an elevated wooden shelf are three-dimensional  realizations by Koka Ramishvili of buildings in paintings by Giorgio de  Chirico. Koka Ramishvili sees these temple-like structures as  transformations of landscape, as they can be imagined in de Chirico's  characteristic deserted cityscapes. According to Koka Ramishvili, they  are models to capture the light, therefore giving them the name light  engines. They were created by him to be photographed with a Leica M Monochrome (type 246) camera. This device does not capture the color  spectra RGB, but countless variations and gradations of gray. The image Orpheus’ Harp provides a conceptual bridge to the group of Lost Landscape images and the Horizon series. The non-representational landscape becomes the strings of Orpheus' harp.