Ali and Nino Statue

The Ali and Nino statue in Batumi is a moving sculpture of a man and a woman, each ~8 m tall, set on the seafront where the port meets the top end of Batumi Boulevard. Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze shaped both bodies from thin horizontal steel segments stacked one above the other, with gaps of open air between them. When the motors start, the segments rotate and the two figures drift together, lean in as if to kiss, slide right through one another and end up apart again. It sits in open public space, so you can walk up to it at any hour without a ticket.

Most people time their visit for the evening run. From about 19:00 the pair starts to circle, and one full approach and parting takes roughly 10 minutes. Once the sky darkens, coloured lights play over the steel and the base, and the slow motion starts to look like a dance. Stand to one side rather than straight in front: from the side you can see the layers slot between each other. Afterwards, the Alphabetic Tower and the rest of Miracle Park are a short stroll away, or you can head south along the promenade toward the old town.

Kvesitadze designed the work around 2007 under the plain title Man and Woman, and it was first shown that year at the Venice Biennale. It was installed on Batumi's waterfront in 2010 (a few sources say 2011) and later took the name of Ali and Nino, the 1937 novel signed Kurban Said, a pen name whose real owner is still argued over. In the book, a young Muslim from Baku and a Georgian Christian girl fall in love in the years of the First World War, and it does not end happily. Storms damaged the original base in 2015, so the figures were shifted ~50 m inland; Nino was dropped during the move and repaired within about a week.