Exhibition review: "Andro Wekua Pink Wave Hunter", Benaki Museum, Athens

Photography: Penelope Vlassopoulou

The City of the Architect
A sculptural portrait of Sokhumi, Georgia

The exhibition "Pink Wave Hunter" recently held in the Benaki Museum’s central building in Athens included works of the architect Andro Wekua on his native city of Sokhumi, Georgia.

In the works, a series of three-dimensional representations of buildings, coexist in a singular way the architectural model, the documentary and the artistic interpretation/representation. To create this sculptural “portrait” of the city Wekua drew from his childhood memories, the collective memories of friends and family members and pictures taken by current visitors of the region.

Installed as architectural models and situated in the room so as to function as parts of a theatre set design they mentally carry the visitor to Sokhumi or rather to a Sokhumi of the past. Industrial materials such as concrete, aluminum and brass become part of the visual/poetic vocabulary. The room’s lighting and colors make these materials appear "soft" almost as much as wax, with which they often coexist in the works. Shadow, the silent interlocutor, completes the work.

Architectural models or artworks? Representation or fiction? Wekua's buildings seem to exist in a territory and time of their own where the only certainty is Enigma.

The article "The City of the Architect" was published by the Greek news site TRIKKHpress. This is a translation in English. For the original article on TRIKKHpress go here.