HORVITZ, David
წვიმა Rain

There are 64 different terms for rain in the Georgian language. Artist David Horvitz worked with Tbilisi-based curator Elene Abashidze to collect these words. The result is a glossary that describes the subtle differences in how water can fall from the sky. The wealth of expressions for a single natural phenomenon also makes visible what we stand to lose from the effects of the climate crisis, when the variety of expressions for rain no longer apply.

The book presents these words one by one on every page in three ways: large characters from the Georgian alphabet set vertically like falling raindrops, a phonetic transcription of the Georgian words using Latin characters, and an English description of the type of rain each word represents.

The work was created on the occasion of the exhibition The Palace of Concrete Poetry at the Writers' House of Georgia in Tbilisi (September 9 – October 9, 2022). [publishers’ note]

Published by Taube, 2022
Design by Jan Steinbach
Artists' Books / Cultural Studies / Poetry