This publication accompanies the exhibition KOKOMO, which shows works exploring different notions of nothingness in contemporary Georgia at Gallery Nectar in Tbilisi from April 24 to May 10, 2014. Kokomo, an Island off the Florida Keys from the corresponding song by the Beach Boys, is, despite its namesakes elsewhere in the States, an imaginary place. A utopian nowhere which can be said to center around the wish of escaping lived non-existence...
The Georgian nothing, "araperi" - literally "no color" -, pivots around a lack of visual stimulation, through light. As either being all light, all reflecting - as in white - or none at all, all absorbing - as in black - the impact on the visual perception is of "nothing" in itself, but, put in relation with everything, "k'velaperi", - literally "all color(s)" -, it meanders, borrowing from Alenka Zupancic, "...to nothingness as minimal difference".
This minimal difference constitutes the works shown in the exhibition, and has led to inviting further contributions as to expand the reflection on "nothing" and "nothingness" taking it also outside the Georgian context.