Tolia Astakhishvili

Tolia Astakhishvili
June 20 to November 1, 2026
Levels -2 (Open Studio), -4

Curated by Fatima Hellberg and Manuela Ammer

In keeping with a recurring motif in the work of Georgian artist Tolia Astakhishvili, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition will proceed from the concept of the “figure of the child.” In this context, the child embodies both a high degree of intellectual and creative autonomy and a profound dependence on others. This concept becomes an exercise in imagination, exploring the possibilities and limits of empathy, grounded in the fact that we were all children once. In relation to spatial environments, scale, and precariousness, the child represents a state of being in which invisibility is often experienced with great immediacy and intensity. Accordingly, Astakhishvili focuses on the experience of art itself, extending it to movement and touch and breaking with the conventions of museum presentation. The notion of the “first encounter,” as children experience it when initially perceiving a phenomenon, serves here as a key to a new kind of experience.

Tolia Astakhishvili (born 1974 in Tbilisi, Georgia) lives and works in Berlin and Tbilisi. Her most recent solo exhibitions include to love and devour at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice (2025); between father and mother at the SculptureCenter, New York (2024); The First Finger (chapter II) at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2023); and The First Finger at Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2023). Astakhishvili’s works have been featured in numerous group exhibitions, most recently at MoMA PS1, New York (2025); the Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris (2025); and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Roma, Rome (2024).

Image
Courtesy Studio Tolia Astakhishvili