Gia Edzgveradze (born in Georgia, currently living and working in Germany) made his first show in the Ludwig Museum Budapest with the title Ultramodern Nihilism in 1999. In this complex installation, exhibited in several rooms, he displayed his drawing-like paintings – made in situ – together with his videos in which the artist was shown in strange, ironic situations. In the middle of the room, there was a huge staircase made of carrots, but the strangest part of the work was a bed in which a handsome man reclined, with the following text on the duvet: “Come and join me, and we could make an art-baby …”. All the elements of the installation posed again and again the most fundamental questions of the visual arts: What is art? What is the artist’s role?
Edzgveradze consistently returns to these questions in his work. The Bride was first shown in the Georgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2001, then at the Trieste Contemporanea in 2003. He is again the main character of his own video, playing a psychopath and a murderer who, in the quest for his identity, is dressed as a bride, trying to find relief from his childhood trauma. The bride – and the artist – carries out various activities with painstaking optimism: s/he dances, speaks, searches for the bridegroom or for inspiration, ideas and the beholder’s comprehension. In the interactive part of the installation the visitors are invited to dress up in the bridal gown and to record their own performance with a camera.
