2008 Embassy Events
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MacArthur grant recipient Walter Kitundu performing on his self-made phono harp at the ARCI Gallery. (Photo by Nina Gagua.)
“ARTISTERIUM” Sweeps Tbilisi
In coordination with the Ministry of Culture, the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco, and Parsons the New School of Design in New York City, PAS supported the exhibition and performances of 10 American artists as the U.S. contribution to the international art festival Artisterium in Tbilisi from November 4-9. (“Artisterium” hearkens back to a Tbilisi-based salon and art magazine from the late 1910’s, during the brief period of Georgian independence after World War I, when Tbilisi was connected to the international art movements of Europe.) Musical sculptor and performance artist, Walter Kitundu - born in Tanzania, raised in Minneapolis, and just named as a 2008 recipient of the MacArthur “genius” grant - mesmerized audiences with music performed on a phono harp of his own creation. Ledoh, born in Burma of the Ka-Ren people and trained in Butoh dance traditions, presented a haunting existential performance of life under siege. 12th generation American, Adriane Colburn, exhibited a wall-sized, meticulously researched, cartography of the oil and gas pipelines of the South Caucasus. Extensive media coverage focused on the range of artistic media in their works and on the subthemes of American cultural diversity and tolerance. The artists presented master classes for students at the Art Academy, the Conservatory of Music, and at the Tbilisi Movement Theater. Co-curator, Lydia Matthews, the Dean of Academic Programs at Parsons the New School of Design in New York City, met with Art Academy administrators. (www.artisterium.org)
