In the project ‘Caution, Wet Paint!’, curators Annina Zimmermann and Asida Butba explored painting as a medium capable of transformation and adaptation to diverse visual experiences. In Abkhazia, painting is deeply rooted in academic tradition. The curators showed how this strict visual language can evolve into pure play with colour and form. From Lasha Gabelia’s Turner-esque landscapes to the fantastical cosmos of Nicole Bartsyts, from Amra Chichibaya’s works hovering between landscape and abstraction to Anatoly Kachalov’s reconstructed still life - reality dissolved into formal devices, becoming a space for reflection on the nature of the medium and its components.
Artur Żmijewski’s video Blindly documented a painting workshop conducted by the Polish artist for blind participants. By offering to work in classical genres - self-portrait, landscape, animal studies - the artist aimed to connect visual and tactile experience. Icelandic artist Kúrfur Thoroddsen presented a short film entitled Growing Up, portraying painting - traditionally seen as the pinnacle of artistic media - as a childlike game full of spontaneity and freedom.
Nick Bezemer also played with the high status of painting, whimsically depicting the path of a snail from his garden across the exhibition walls. The continuous black line running through the space is a commentary on how lofty subjects and technical mastery - typically seen as hallmarks of quality - can give way to simplicity and chance.
The exhibition also hosted a three-day workshop by Maria Magdalena Z’Graggen on making tempera paints - one of the simplest traditional methods of working with pigment. Referencing a range of approaches, from tactile perception and childlike spontaneity to conceptual reinterpretation, the project questioned established rules and invited the viewer to see painting as a process open to experimentation.