by Gabriela Acha // May 23, 2025
Floral patterns have long populated utilitarian spheres, adorning furniture, textiles and stationery. The aesthetic, decorative qualities of flowers have made them ubiquitous, and perennial formats have captured their ephemeral nature thanks to industrial methods. Flowers are perceived by some as consumer goods, status symbols or even political emblems from different sides of the ideological spectrum. The Soviet Union appropriated the red carnation as an emblem of the Bolshevik Revolution, while other floral patterns adorned the posters of its Soviet Socialist Republics, surrounding regional flags or mothers with their babies above proud statements such as: “children are the flowers of the commune.” In contrast, dissident movements defied the regime with countless poems and paintings that conveyed forbidden meanings with secrecy, through floral patterns.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘there, but not,’ 2025, exhibition view, Kunstverein Braunschweig // Courtesy of the artist, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, LC QUEISSER, Tbilisi, Molitor, Berlin, Kunstverein Braunschweig, photo by Frank Sperling
In her work, Georgian-American artist Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili often refers to the ubiquity of floral patterns during this period, where the symbolism of tulips emerged following the tragic events of April 9th, 1989, when dozens were killed and thousands injured in the streets of Tbilisi following an anti-Soviet protest. The area was covered with flowers in honour of the victims of the massacre, mainly tulips as they were in season, and thus this flower became a symbol of dissent and the starting point from which her exhibition ‘there, but not’ at Kunstverein Braunschweig is conceived.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘there, but not,’ 2025, exhibition view, Kunstverein Braunschweig // Courtesy of the artist, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, LC QUEISSER, Tbilisi, Molitor, Berlin, Kunstverein Braunschweig, photo by Frank Sperling
‘Making food out of sunlight (twilight)’ (2024) and ‘Making food out of sunlight (dawn)’ (2024) are two works from a series of dye-sublimations on aluminium depicting the silhouette of a pair of tulips. Their flat, slightly kaleidoscopic aspect is achieved by placing the flowers directly on the photosensitive material, eliminating the distance between the object and the lens. The series was inspired by the surrealist artist Florence Henri, a student of Moholy-Nagy at the Bauhaus, whose photographic compositions of flowers disorientated the eye with fragmented trompe l’oeils, created by prisms and reflections.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘there, but not,’ 2025, exhibition view, Kunstverein Braunschweig // Courtesy of the artist, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, LC QUEISSER, Tbilisi, Molitor, Berlin, Kunstverein Braunschweig, photo by Frank Sperling
For Alexi-Meskhishvili, the historical events and personal histories informing her work are as crucial as her formal methods. Her scans and photographs of surrounding patterns appear as site-specific installations, such as in ‘flooding the zone’ (2025); a metallic structure going around the room, from which a set of printed curtains hang, following the oval shape of the space, covering the wall and the structure. This “space within a space”—in curator Cathrin Mayer’s words—is flooded with flower patterns taken from mass-produced serviettes. In the middle of the Kunstverein’s main salon, a five-meter-wide curtain hangs across the room. The bright light coming from the wide windows penetrates the cotton fabric that ‘Swan Veil’ (2025) is made of, becoming part of the work while rendering the nature of the photographic image quite obvious and site-specific. The curtain depicts a pattern made of swans, another motif taken from a serviette, scanned and printed on a cotton fabric.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘there, but not,’ 2025, exhibition view, Kunstverein Braunschweig // Courtesy of the artist, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, LC QUEISSER, Tbilisi, Molitor, Berlin, Kunstverein Braunschweig, photo by Frank Sperling
Transfers of found imagery onto various formats via scanner or by placing the objects in direct contact with photosensitive materials is an intrinsic part of the artist’s practice, which erases the distance between the object and the capturing device. The resultant image is as hyper-realistic as it is distorted, like reality when looked at too closely. Her references to the mirror effects of Henri appear not just on the most obvious visual level, but in how she creates material, historical and personal recurrences, as if different events in time were reflecting each other. Through her references, Alexi-Meskhishvili also acknowledges the cyclical logic of life and history, as her daughter is now 13-years-old, the age she was when she left Georgia for the US.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘there, but not,’ 2025, exhibition view, Kunstverein Braunschweig // Courtesy of the artist, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, LC QUEISSER, Tbilisi, Molitor, Berlin, Kunstverein Braunschweig, photo by Frank Sperling
Alexi-Meskhishvili’s immersive installations transcend the traditional perspective on the photographic image from a Wittgensteinian approach to the motif whose meaning gets assigned by their use. Instead, she suggests that this meaning can be opaque to the public—”there, but not”—when used for cryptic political purposes. The kitschiness of some everyday objects can ambiguously accommodate both flat narratives and ones loaded with meaning.
Avoiding the official emblems herself, and implementing these ambiguous elements within in her works, the artist continues her search for a subjective and complex national identity through found patterns that seem to link her past with the present, in which the socio-political turmoil continues.
Exhibition Info
Kunstverein Braunschweig
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili : ‘there, but not’
Exhibition: Mar. 15-June 1, 2025
kunstvereinbraunschweig.de
Lessingpl. 12, 38102 Braunschweig, click here for map
