Zauri Matikashvili. You may not want to be here

Kunsthalle Münster is showing You may not want to be here, the first institutional solo exhibition by Zauri Matikashvili, providing an insight into the work of the Georgian artist. In addition to his new two-channel installation Passing the Glass (2026), which celebrates its premiere as part of the exhibition at Kunsthalle Münster, two of Matikashvili's older films, In Katernberg (2022) and Made in Europe (2023), will also be shown. The cinematic works are complemented by his series You may not want to be here (since 2024) - a series of sculptures that run through the entire exhibition space and enter into a dialog with his cinematic works.

Matikashvili uses his camera to bear witness to contemporary stories, document social, political or historical events and question social orders. From different perspectives, he focuses on themes such as identity, traditional role models, segregation, belonging, division, racism and increasing repression. In his works, he asks how people's everyday lives are linked to power and resistance, how societies function in detail or not.

Against the backdrop of a regression of democracy, the confrontation with increasing authoritarian populism, a general political shift to the right and growing social inequalities, Matikashvili's works have a particular urgency. He provides a dissenting voice to those loud, polarizing and defamatory positions that ignore, deny or distort facts.

Zauri Matikashvili's films are dedicated to individual people, groups of people or places. He often focuses his attention on people who otherwise receive little attention. These are largely individual realities of life, which he uses to trace socio-cultural and political contexts - usually beyond the big political stages, although closely interwoven with them. He is a participant observer who immerses himself in the field and takes part in what is happening. In an unspectacular and quiet way, the artist bears witness to what identity or migration mean, how societies function in detail and how far opinions, attitudes and life plans sometimes drift apart. In his films, he brings together different voices, resulting in dissonance, an ambiguity that is not always pleasant and must be endured.

For a long time, Matikashvili encountered strangers in his films who let him share their lives for a while. He is fascinated by the unpredictable and surprising moments in his encounters with them, by their thoughts, opinions, desires and wishes. Only in his most recent works has he turned his attention to people from his family and their environment. This is accompanied by an examination of his native Georgia, which is in a state of extreme uncertainty - economically, politically and also culturally. Matikashvili combines autobiographical filmmaking with sociological reflection.

The interplay of proximity and distance that Matikashvili uses in his cinematic works can also be seen in a different form in his sculptural works. The series You may not want to be here (since 2024) consists of objects made of ceramics, porcelain, wax, metal and found objects from nature, some of which are coated with earth, metals or dust. The concrete starting point for the objects is the artist's own thyroid gland. In a broader sense, it stands for the examination of one's own body, its function and dysfunction, questions of existence and transience. From object to object, the form has changed and is no longer recognizable as such. The mutations and growths evoke a sense of unease, while at the same time a fascination for the forms and materials.