Photographic Vertigo

An Artist Talk with Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili

Photographic Vertigo: An Artist Talk with Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili
In conversation with Carina Bukuts
5:00 pm
How can photography unveil something that has always existed but remained unknown? This question, among many others, is explored in the work of Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, whose artistic practice embraces the slippery nature of photography. Through the combination of experimental analog techniques with digital means, Alexi-Meskhishvili creates controlled environments to give artistic direction but ultimately allows chance to take over in her processes of image-making. In this conversation, Alexi-Meskhishvili will speak with curator Carina Bukuts about challenging authorship, the darkroom as a stage and studio, and the concept of personal and collective memory in relation to the artist’s Georgian roots and the country’s Soviet history—themes also explored in her exhibition “Georgia,” opening at Galerie Molitor during Gallery Weekend Berlin.

Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili (b. 1979, Tbilisi) is a Georgian-American photographer living in Berlin. Staging her compositions in her studio, or directly on the surface of an analog film emulsion, in a “camera-free” method, she makes images in which the residual details of this deliberately precarious production shape their subject matter. Homing in on porous boundaries between life and art, Alexi-Meskhishvili melds the grotesque, poetic, political, humorous, and uncanny in ambivalent cohesion. Solo exhibitions have been held at Kunsthalle Baden Baden (2026, forthcoming); Kunstverein Braunschweig (2025); Je Vous Propose, Zurich (2024); LC Quiesser, Tbilisi (2024); backwall at Kunsthalle Basel (2023); Helena Anrather, New York (2023); and Galerie Molitor, Berlin (2022), among others. Selected group exhibitions include Kunstmeile Hamburg (2025); Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, London (2025); CCA Berlin (2024); and SculptureCenter, New York (2024).
Carina Bukuts is Chief Curator at Kunsthalle Wien. From 2022 to 2025 she was the curator of Portikus, Frankfurt, a position she held together with Liberty Adrien. There she has curated acclaimed solo exhibitions of Hassan Khan (2025), Adrian Piper (2024), Tarik Kiswanson (2024), Simone Fattal (2023), Lap-See Lam (2023), and Asad Raza (2022) as well as group shows featuring Jason Dodge, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Laurie Parsons, Luiz Roque, Slavs and Tatars, Sung Tieu, and Cecilia Vicuña, among others. Prior to this she served as an editor at frieze and founded PASSE-AVANT, an online platform dedicated to contemporary art and discourse. She is a member of the art critics association AICA and her writings regularly appear in various monographs and magazines, including frieze, Mousse Magazine, and Spike Art Magazine. Additionally, she has taught at institutions such as Städelschule, Goethe University Frankfurt, Academy of Fine Arts Mainz, and Braunschweig University of Arts.

Preisinformationen: zzgl. Eintritt

Nächster Termin:

• Termin Freitag, 01. Mai 2026, 17:00 Uhr bis 18:00 Uhr
• Ort Neue Nationalgalerie
• Adresse Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten