The Pavilion of Georgia at the Venice Art Biennale 2013 is an extension to an old building in the Arsenale site of the Biennial. The structure is called a “kamikaze loggia”, designed by Gio Sumbadze, who is a researcher of the typology of these vernacular architectural additions, which have been created since the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union to increase the living space. It’s said that a Russian journalist named them “kamikaze”, drawing a parallel between the romantic and suicidal character of these extensions and the typical ending of most Georgian family names “-adze”. In the case of the Georgian Pavilion, the “kamikaze loggia” hosts an exhibition of the artists the Bouillon Group, Thea Djordjadze, Nikoloz Lutidze, Gela Patashuri with Ei Arakawa and Sergei Tcherepnin, and Gio Sumbadze. The exhibition, curated by Joanna Warsza, looks at the creation of informal architecture such as the “kamikaze loggia” and aims at presenting the extraordinary range of informality, bottom-up solutions and the concept of self-organization in Georgian art and architecture.
Kamikaze Loggia: Bouillon Group, Thea Djordjadze, Nikoloz Lutidze, Gela Patashuri with Ei Arakawa and Sergei Tcherepnin, Gio Sumbadze. Pavilion of Georgia at the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. Exhibition walkthrough, Professional Preview, May 31, 2013.
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