Levan Chogoshvili was born in 1953, Tbilisi. He studied at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts from 1970 to 1976, and from 1973, in fact, becomes an unofficial artist, when students still create groups united by common interests together with art historians, such as the group of Levan Chogoshvili, Dimitri Tumanishvili, and Giorgi Marjanishvili. Along with other unofficial artists, starting from 1976, he participates in unofficial exhibitions: in the apartment of Valerian Sidamon-Eristavi’s sister (1976), in the hall of the Theater Society (the so-called Stella) (1977–1978), in the exhibition space of the Saburtalo Medical Clinic (1979), etc., while prior to that, his contraposition is formed – a artistic-intellectual, historical-political conceptual confrontation with the Soviet ideological environment and artistic reality. The artist’s oeuvre includes the first series of paintings on the theme of power and eroticism “Venus and Mar(k)s” (1972–1993), the 1987 (1978) so-called apartment artwork with the concept of ephemerality, the best-known series starting from 1973 from paintings-photos/pictures-photos using pre-annexation-sovietization family photographs, the historical theme “The Murder of Zurab Eristavi of Aragvi” (first version – 1975, new version – 1983), and the polystylistic series “Exterminated Aristocracy” (1973–1989), which unites the languages of Tbilisi, Qajar portrait, Arabic, Persian, Armenian miniature, Polish-Sarmatian, early Scottish portrait, and modernism, where people exist in “atemporality” and the artist seemingly “cancels time”, while he himself is a follower of the subjective perception of the objective.

Selected Works:
Andronikashvili Family. From the series “Exterminated Georgian Aristocracy” (1987, gouache on paper, 50×54)
From the series “Exterminated Georgian Aristocracy” (1991, gouache on paper, 50×70)
From the series “Exterminated Georgian Aristocracy” (1991, mixed media)
From the series “Exterminated Georgian Aristocracy” (1991, mixed media)