Georgia will be the honoured guest for four months in Belgium, the world’s political centre, a bilingual, multi-ethnic nation where cultural identities coexist together.
The nation will showcase its unique cultural past, spanning from ancient civilization to the present, as part of the well-known and prestigious popular art festival for Europeans, Europalia.
“We have Europalia Georgia this year, a nation with a distinct culture that, regrettably, not many people are aware of,” says Baron Philippe Vlerick, the Chairman of the Europalia festival.
Presented by BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, The Avant-Garde in Georgia was the first flagship exhibition of 60 activities slated over four months. It was the first time that Georgian and French avant-garde paintings from 1900 to 1936 were brought together.
A few weeks after the opening, more than 10,000 people showed interest in Georgian art, drawn from samples held in private collections and renowned museums in Europe, in addition to the works of Niko Pirosmani, Lado Gudiashvili, Elene Akhvlediani, Davit Kakabadze, Gigo Gabashvili, and many other artists.
“In 2019, we decided to dedicate the festival to Georgia. I first visited Georgia that year, and it was then that I became acquainted with your nation’s incredible modern art and culture. The public is enthusiastic, and this is just the start,” says Dirk Vermaelen, Artistic Director of Europalia.
Performances, electronic music, literary meetings, a retrospective of Georgian cinema, Georgian National Ballet Sukhishvili, and a number of events are planned in the forthcoming months in Belgium and its neighboring countries.
“The country aims to communicate its message to ordinary Belgians, and not just them, as the whole of Europe gathered in Brussels,” says Georgian Ambassador to Belgium, Vakhtang Makharoblishvili.
As an invited guest, Georgia hopes to raise global awareness of its history and culture, which will aid its bid to become an EU candidate country.
The festival runs from 5 October to 14 January.
