photos: © Jens Franke . + Hamburger Kunsthalle
A performance at the opening of the exhibition marks the emergence of the sculpture Father by the Georgian artist Vajiko Chachkhiani. A middle-aged man – a father, as
the title reveals – sits for hours on a chair at this location with his feet held tight by a block of hardening cement.
He freezes like a living sculpture, forced to remain
immobile. The father figure, now impotent and paralysed, loses every sense of authority. All he can do is sit tight and wait. Has the enthroned yet captive father become
the symbol of a generation conflict? Chachkhiani raises questions and brings conflicts to light without offering any answers.
Following the opening, relics remain and bear witness to the performance: an empty chair, a block of cement with two holes where the father’s feet had been held tight.
The absence of the father figure materializes ex negative. The idea outlives the actual appearance, the work ultimately becomes a sculpture.
Hamburger Kunsthalle
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