Thea Gvetadze and Diana Tamane joint exhibition “Room for Many”

On Friday, 24 May at 5 p.m., Thea Gvetadze and Diana Tamane will open their joint exhibition “Room for Many” in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House as part of the main programme of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024. The curator of the exhibition is Inga Lāce. On Saturday, May 25 at 2 p.m., there will be a conversation between the artists and the curator at the exhibition.

The exhibition invites you to engage in a dialogue with the artists across diverse media, including video, photography, painting, textiles and installation, the artists intricately weave narratives that delve into personal experiences, familial connections, and intimate observations of life.

Through new works, “Room for Many” is a snapshot of their current selves, a self-portrait of sorts, while also connecting the artists’ stories with narratives of resilience and survival experienced by other women. In doing so, it creates a space for communal gathering, while also allowing for physical relaxation, vulnerability and introspection.

Thea and Diana met in Tbilisi when Diana was in a residency there. Curator Inga Lāce connected with the two artists, and after a while they decided to work together. Diana, born in Riga and currently living and working in Tartu, has had a long relationship with the city and the Art House. Thea took part in a group show at the Tartu Art Museum in 2016, although the show at the Art House marks her first large presentation in the Baltics. She was born in Riga, where her parents were studying at the time, and this meeting between the two artists reflects the mesh of destinations and returns so common in contemporary biographies of our region.

“While preparing for the exhibition, numerous political calamities continued and intensified, marking the third year of Russia’s war against Ukraine, disastrous genocide in Gaza, and protests against a pro-Russian law in Georgia which were violently suppressed, troubling the contexts that the artists worked from. These rooms thus also become spaces that we hope can hold as many women, men, stories, guests, travellers, moving bodies, pillows and dreams as needed to provide safe landings,” explains the curator Inga Lāce.

Diana Tamane (b. 1986) lives and works in Tartu, Estonia. She graduated in photography from the Tartu Art College (BA) and the LUCA School of Art in Brussels (MA). Her recent solo exhibition include The Sea is You, Tallinn City gallery (2023); Flower Smuggler, Kahan Art Space, Vienna (2022); Half-Love, Tartu Art Museum (2022); Typology of Touch, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn (2022); Under the Same Sky, Kogo gallery, Tartu (2022); Typology of Touch, De Vereniging, S.M.A.K., Ghent (2020); and Commissions, ISSP Gallery, Riga (2018). 

Thea Gvetadze  (b. 1971) works and lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her recent solo exhibitions include Iris Iberica, LC Queisser (2022); Subtropical Ushguli, LC Queisser, Tbilisi (2019); Thea Gvetadze – Becoming Thea Merlani, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2018); and Zeda Tsinsvla, Gallery Nectar, Tbilisi (2017).  

Inga Lāce (b. 1986) is Chief Curator at the Almaty Museum of Arts, Kazakhstan. She is interested in migration and connections across regions, legacies of politics of friendship and international solidarity. She was a C-MAP Central and Eastern Europe Fellow at MoMA, New York (2020-2023), and has been a curator at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art since 2012 and a curator of the Latvian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019. 

Team
Graphic designer: Vahram Muradyan
Supervision in ceramics: Eva Krivonogova
Sound editing: Katya Chitova, Vahram Muradyan
Translation: Peeter Talvistu
Language editing: Richard Adang, Anti Saar
Production: Siim Asmer, Mona Kapper, Viktor Kiss, Elika Kiilo-Kulpsoo, Urmo Teekivi

Special thanks to Tamr Gabunia and Ingel Vaikla. 

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
The exhibition will remain open until 30 June.

Additional information:
Urmo Teekivi
Tartu Art House producer
produtsent@kunstimaja.ee
511 0883

www.kunstimaja.ee
facebook.com/kunstimaja
Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge.
The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu town government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.