within the expansions of cosmological body
Through inquiries into psychology, microbiology, cosmology, and spiritual practices - I imagine taxonomies unburdened from gendered, binary dichotomies. Through the art-making that embodies immersive installations, sculptures, neons, images, video, and sound, I seek to create experiences that most effectively embody and expose these newly acquired knowledges.
I am looking into examples of various life forms characterized by radical transformational qualities. I study phenomena such as complete metamorphosis in insects and regeneration of lost body parts and organs by stem cells.
I look at these examples as models to facilitate the necessary transition from the patriarchal extractive systems of oppression to the generative communal networks of cohabitation while collectively addressing the pressing issues of inequality, resource monopolization, and climate change.
Along with the necessity to create safe, remote, alternative spaces for the community, I find it equally vital insertion into the dominant structures of power as a queering contagion to demand the necessary ethical/queer/just approach to alarmingly fast developing engineering of the critical areas of our planetary future: BioEngineering, AI + technology, and Space colonization.
My work is an invocation for queer empowerment, as my every presentation is envisioned as a safe inhabitable space for the community. Through shared meals, dance parties, or performative readings, we map out a new sense of being -together and within- as a multicell entity. The generosity of shared joy and pleasure are our strongest unifying forces, encouraging and fostering the imaginative, courageous, and spiritual.
Invoking copresenses along the geographies and temporalities -exercised through ancestral or revitalized practices- brings a sense of continuity and belonging, creating our own histories, epistemologies, and ontologies.
Voices of our trans community are of particular importance to me. As I currently navigate the uncharted -for me- territory of trans-binary, I am also highly aware of my privileges and access to the resources on the one hand, and the limitings of innate antagonism to the mainstream. Where humanity as a society stands now, Transness is the radical rupture and disobedience to its dominant structures and powers. It fundamentally shutters the very foundations of its binary, heteropatriarchal nucleus. The possibility to autonomously self-define dismantles their ontological taxonomies to its core.
By attacking Transness and trans people, our most basic rights are attacked. Our right to create systems among the networks of the community and keens that best work for our needs to experience this temporary condition of being alive and thriving.
Non-linearity, chaos, rest, remoteness, and opacity, along with intricate sensuality, playfulness, and allure, are among my preferred strategies when deciding the visual outcome>embodiment>presentation. Material richness and diversity further challenge the oppositions of natural vs. unnatural and draw upon the inevitable acceptance of our porousness and continuous cross-contamination.
To better understand the pressing planetary, societal, and political issues, I propose imagining a human species not as a center of the entire existence but as a mere example of bacterial life embedded within the expanses of the cosmological body. This scaling most probably can not bring necessary humbling of the privileged and empowered 1%, but hopefully it can become a call to action for the rest of 99%. This envisioning might also bring clarity to the actual redistribution of the forces behind any systems and structures.
The fundamentals of my path are empathy, solidarity, and care, as through these mutual, reciprocal nurturances, I experience the highest joys of being alive, along the journey called together.
Levani
Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY)
Monday, October 2, 2023
cv
EDUCATION
2008-2010
Postgraduate Studies in Combined Artistic Languages, IUNA (National University of Art of Buenos Aires) Argentina;
1997-2003
Tbilisi State Academy of Fine Arts;
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2022
ARTISTS ALLIANCE Inc. LES Studio Program Residency;
2021
Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship;
Two Trees Bridge Space Program;
City Artist Corps Grants;
2020
Peter S.Reed Foundation Grant for Mixed Media / Sculpture;
NYFA New York Foundation of Arts Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program;
2019
Creative Time, Grant for X Summit Creative Dinners (with Elene Damenia);
AIM fellowship, The Bronx Museum of the Arts;
2018
NARS Foundation Studio Residency, Brooklyn;
2014
FABLES Commission grant for Public Art Projects, National Endowments for Arts, New York City;
2011
Emerging Artist of 2011. Movistar Arte Jóven 2011, Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
2010
The 3rd Award for the Drawing, Premio Museo Metropolitano, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
TALKS & PANELS
2019
“What is Political?” moderator of the panel with Monika Sosnowska (artist) and Sohrab Mohebbi (curator, SculptureCenter NY), Tbilisi Art Fair Talk Series, Organized by Kunsthalle Tbilisi;
“Contemporary Georgian Art Now,” panelist. Moderated by Dr. Heike Fuhlbruegge, Berlin Art Fair Talk Series;
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
National Art Museum of China, Beijing;
Georgian National Museum, Mestia;
Tbilisi Silk Museum, Georgia;
SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023
"a spell," TURLEY Gallery, Hudson, NY;
"imago of a global south-born, lenapehoking-based queer artist to investigate the material, cosmological, and psychological dimensions of existence; to collapse dichotomies and identity categories; to offer an iconography of pluriversal belonging; to inspire empathy, solidarity, and care." ARTISTS ALLIANCE Inc. Cuchifritos Gallery+Project Space, NYC;
2022
"Nested in a Place of Becoming - Adler Guerrier, Levani (Levan Mindiashvili)", Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Georgia;
2021
"what color is the Black Sea?" Marisa Newman Projects, NY (publication);
2019
“Now is Always Someone Else,” NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY;
"89.19" Berlin Art Fair, Germany;
“I Should Have Kissed You Longer,” TAF’19, Tbilisi, Georgia;
2018
“In Search of The Miraculous” NADA Miami Beach;
“Non_Place: Levan Mindiashvili, Grant Wells,” SFA Projects, NYC;
2017
“Here”, Georgian National Museum, Mestia;
“In-Between”, State Silk Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Shifting Identities,” VOLTA NY;
2016
“Night Intervention” Uta Bekaia+Levan Mindiashvili, State Silk Museum, Georgia;
“Unintended Archeology, Levan Mindiashvili+Uta Bekaia,” The Lodge Gallery, NYC;
2015
“Kiosk,” ODETTA, Brooklyn, NY;
“Suites For Unintended Archeology,” The Vazquez Building, Brooklyn, NY;
2014
“Borderlines”, The Lodge Gallery, New York City, NY;
2013
“Whispers,” ArtArea Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Urban Identities,” Kunstraub99, Cologne, Germany;
2011
“Intimidades Mobiles,” NES Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
2009
“Levan Mindiashvili: Performances,” part of ArtIsterium 09, II International Forum of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi, Georgia;
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selection)
2022
"The earth leaked red ochre", curated by Re'al Christian, Miriam Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (publication);
"Forward Ground," Fridman Gallery, NY;
2021
"Bronx Calling: 5th Aim Biennial," The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx;
"Socrates Annual: Sanctuary," Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY;
“Two Shapes of a Leaf on One Tree”, East Slovak Gallery, Kosice, Slovakia;
2020
1st Immigrant Artists Biennial, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NY;
“In Search of The Miraculous,” Museum of Modern Art, Tbilisi, Georgia;
2019
“In Search of The Miraculous,” Shau Fenster, Berlin, Germany;
“Surrogate histories / projected remains,” Project: ARTspace, NYC;
“Lucky Draw,” SculptureCenter, NY;
“BRIC Biennial Vol.3,” BRIC, Brooklyn, NY;
“Image and Its Likeness,” Museum of Modern Art, Tbilisi;
2018
“Black & Noir,” Galerie Youn, Montreal, Canada;
“Down The Line...” NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY:
“What We Loved Was Not Enough,” Super Dutchess, New York, NY;
“RE:21 This Is Not Here,” Pfizer Building, Brooklyn, NY;
“The Border No.1,” The Border Project Space, Brooklyn, NY;
“Hot Stuff,” ODETTA, Brooklyn, NY;
“Tbilisi… Tbilisi,” Project ArtBeat, Tbilisi;
2017
The 7th Beijing International Art Biennale, National Art Museum of China;
“True Believers,” David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY;
“Limits of My City,” Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi;
2016
“Shaping Identities,” Tbilisi History Museum, Georgia;
“Eco Impulse,” Tbilisi Literature Museum, Georgia;
“Future Memory,” Art Villa Garikula, Georgia;
“Shaping Identities,” Arsenal Museum, Kiev, Ukraine;
“Green,” The National Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Aesthetics of Repair in Contemporary Georgia,” Tartu Art Museum, Estonia;
“A Room of One's Own: An Exhibition,” The Clemente, NYC;
2015
“Structures,” The Manny Cantor Center, NYC;
“HERITAGE,” RichMix Arts Center, London, UK;
2014
“Crossing The Boundaries.03,” AT388, Rotterdam, The Netherlands;
2013
“HERITAGE,” Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“For Which It Stands,” The Lodge Gallery, New York City, NY;
2012
“MAN/kind,” 32 Jones Gallery, Jersey City, NJ;
Summer Show, Fundacion Mundo Nuevo, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
2011
Movistar Arte Joven 2011, Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
“Seres Encontrados,” “Objeto a” art gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
2010
ArtIsterium 10, III International Forum of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Projects,” Isidro Miranda Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
“Vectores Invertidos,” Laguanacazul Art Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
“Heterodoxa02,” Nes_zona 54 Art Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
2009
“Negro Barocco,” Encontre Arte Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
“New Generation,” Gallery Arsi, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Kunst Raub #003,” Galerie Kunstraub99, Cologne, Germany;
2008
“Heterodoxa01,” Salon Dorado, Teatro Roma, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
“Weltreise der Sinne,” IKV Bonn, Germany;
2007
“Perdue,” GalerieD’Art Paris8, Paris, France;
2006
“The Lost Ones,” Gallery Universe, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Georgian Visual Art,” National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia;
2005
“Tbilisi Impronte,” Gallery Borgo Arte, Borgomanero, Italy;
“Figurative Art Studio.02,” Gallery Universe, Tbilisi, Georgia;
“Kunst Aus Georgien.03,” Gallery CultiG7, Mannheim, Germany;
2004
“Figurative Art Studio.01,” Gallery Universe, Tbilisi, Georgia;
2003
“Kunst Aus Georgien.02,” Gallery CultiG7, Mannheim, Germany.