Berlin-based Georgian artist Thea Djordjadze returns to New York for the first time in a decade to exhibit A well of night, on view at Sprüth Magers until Oct. 24. In her first solo exhibition at the gallery’s New York location, Djordjadze creates the installation in dialogue with the building’s neo-Renaissance architecture. And that’s typical of her work. Djordjadze is known to integrate her installations into the surrounding architecture to create site-specific sculptural environments.
Thea Djordjadze. Photography by Maka Kukulava, at.ge; courtesy of Sprüth Magers.
“For me, the building and the design and the architecture are very important,” Djordjadze told Elephant in 2024. “The sculpture is making decisions; it’s telling me where to go, how to be positioned. It’s not only me. It’s the interaction between me and the sculpture and the building.”
Photography by Genevieve Hanson; courtesy of Sprüth Magers.
A well of night combines new and old, featuring some existing pieces alongside new art, including new plaster relief paintings and reconfigured sculptures. Curious about how context informs the perception of art, Djordjadze says that when configuring an exhibition, she starts to “listen to the void, listen to the building, to the pieces.”
Photography by Genevieve Hanson; courtesy of Sprüth Magers
In A well of night, Djordjadze juxtaposes steel and aluminum with new sculptural paintings, rich with pigment worked into the porous surface and built up in layers across a creamy plaster ground. The resulting 3D abstraction, known as a painterly relief, unites painting and sculpture in a single piece.
Photography by Genevieve Hanson; courtesy of Sprüth Magers
In another play on contrast, the exhibition’s name, A well of night, suggests darkness that the artist counters by cladding the gallery’s dark hardwood floors with light-colored vinyl, blurring spatial boundaries and altering the experience of the room. Within this carefully curated setting, Djordjadze displays a steel vitrine with a print sealed behind plexiglass that reflects the surrounding space, making the setting part of the artwork. This form, which she first introduced in 2017, references her Georgian roots through mid-century display cases designed by Georgian anthropologist Alexander Javakhishvili and painter Avtandil Varazi for Tbilisi’s archaeological museum.
Photography by Genevieve Hanson; courtesy of Sprüth Magers
To Djordjadze, her work is never quite “finished.” She sees her pieces as works in progress, continually reevaluating them in relation to one another and to each new exhibition space.
Photography by Genevieve Hanson; courtesy of Sprüth Magers
Thea Djordjadze’s exhibition A well of night is on view at Sprüth Magers, New York, through Oct. 24, 2026.
