Berlin-based Georgian artist Thea Djordjadze has returned to New York for the first time in ten years, bringing her highly anticipated solo exhibition, A well of night, to Sprüth Magers. On view through October 24, 2026, the exhibition marks Djordjadze’s debut solo presentation at the gallery’s New York location. True to her signature artistic practice, the artist has meticulously crafted the installation in direct, profound dialogue with the building’s distinct neo-Renaissance architecture, weaving together industrial materials, historic references, and spatial interventions that challenge how viewers perceive both the art and the environment it inhabits.
Djordjadze is widely recognized for her site-specific sculptural environments, which consistently dissolve the traditional boundaries between an artwork and its architectural container. Rather than treating a gallery space as a neutral white cube, she allows the physical characteristics of the building to actively participate in the creation and placement of her work.
"For me, the building and the design and the architecture are very important," Djordjadze explained in a conversation with Elephant. "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."
A well of night exemplifies this philosophy by seamlessly combining new and existing pieces, featuring an array of recent plaster relief paintings alongside reconfigured sculptures that have evolved from her ongoing body of work. Djordjadze’s creative process relies heavily on context and intuition. Curious about how spatial context informs the perception of art, she describes her approach to configuring an exhibition as a process of "listening to the void, listening to the building, to the pieces."
Throughout the exhibition, Djordjadze orchestrates a delicate balance of contrasting materials, textures, and forms. She juxtaposes rigid industrial elements like steel and aluminum with soft, tactile surfaces, including her new sculptural paintings. These works are rich with pigment worked directly into porous surfaces, built up in sophisticated layers across creamy plaster grounds. The resulting three-dimensional abstractions, known as painterly reliefs, successfully bridge the historical divide between painting and sculpture, uniting both mediums into singular, cohesive objects.
The title of the exhibition itself, A well of night, introduces a poetic tension centered around themes of darkness and depth. Djordjadze counters this atmospheric concept by cladding the gallery’s dark hardwood floors with light-colored vinyl, a subtle yet dramatic intervention that alters the natural acoustics and lighting of the room while blurring spatial boundaries. Within this carefully curated setting, visitors encounter a steel vitrine housing a print sealed behind plexiglass. The reflective surface captures and mirrors the surrounding gallery space, effectively incorporating the architecture and the viewer into the fabric of the artwork.
This specific display form carries deep personal and cultural resonance, referencing the artist’s Georgian roots. The vitrine design draws direct inspiration from mid-century display cases originally conceived by Georgian anthropologist Alexander Javakhishvili and painter Avtandil Varazi for the archaeological museum in Tbilisi—a motif Djordjadze first introduced into her sculptural vocabulary in 2017. By integrating these historical and personal touchstones into contemporary Western gallery spaces, she creates layered narratives that bridge different geographies and eras.
For Djordjadze, an exhibition is never truly a closed chapter or a finished product. She views her sculptures and installations as perpetual works in progress, continuously reevaluating them in relation to one another as they travel from city to city and adapt to each new architectural environment. This fluid, mutable approach ensures that every iteration of her work offers a distinct visual and spatial experience.
*Thea Djordjadze’s exhibition A well of night is on view at Sprüth Magers, New York, through October 24, 2026.
As a veteran of more than 25 years in the interior design industry, contributing writer Danine Alati began her career at the commercial design publication Contract, spending 11 years there before transitioning into luxury lifestyle media with titles such as Hamptons and Art Basel. Based in Brooklyn with her family, she has contributed her expertise to AD PRO, DuJour, Galerie, and aspire, among other prominent design and lifestyle publications.
