Erekle Chinchilakashvili's Steel Frame Captures Tbilisi's Fragmented Memory

The Why Not Gallery in Tbilisi presents Erekle Chinchilakashvili's first solo exhibition, 'The Story of a Thread Seen Through the Window,' from July 20 to August 20, 2026. The show occupies the gallery's new venue inside Fabrika Tbilisi, a former garment complex that housed the Nino sewing factory. Chinchilakashvili, who now lives in Budapest, draws on the site's 1970s and 80s production floors and the surrounding residential fabric of Ninoshvili Street. A floor-to-ceiling steel frame structures the space, holding paintings in bays like specimens. The installation evokes church scaffolding, unfinished renovation, and a laboratory grid. A wall-mounted screen plays footage from Georgian television and Otar Ioseliani's short film 'Sapovnela,' sourced from the National Archives of Georgia, with a soundtrack by VAZHMARR and TeTe Noise. One canvas in an aluminum housing features an ochre face that resists resolution. The exhibition treats memory as material, avoiding nostalgia, and keeps its mechanics visible.