Tolia Astakhishvili
Tolia Astakhishvili was born in 1974 in Tbilisi, Georgia, and lives between Berlin and Tbilisi. Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, painting, sound, video, and writing, integrated into architectural environments that evoke spaces in transformation. Recent solo exhibitions include SculptureCenter, New York (2024), Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2023), and the Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2023). She has also exhibited at MoMA PS1, New York (2025), the Kunsthalle Zürich (2023), Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris, and Malmö Konsthall (2019).
ᲡᲐᲔᲠᲗᲐᲨᲝᲠᲘᲡᲝ (INTERNATIONAL)
2024 (version 2025)
black metal (rebar), metal sheet of rebar, protective coating
Courtesy of the artist and LC Queisser gallery, Tbilisi, Cologne
Internationalism means solidarity that transcends ethnic and national divisions. In the work International, the artist performs a literal and metaphorical vivisection of this concept, dismantling its meanings. The word placed on the arch საერთაშორისო means “international.” Its first five letters (საერო) translate as “for the good of the country.” The second word, ველი, is a fragment of the word lying on the floor, გაურკ. Together these elements form გაურკვეველი, meaning “uncertain.” An additional letter, უ (“u”), lies separately next to the other letters, further emphasizing the theme of uncertainty. Created in 2024, the work is a commentary on the direction of political changes in Georgia, stretched between international integration and national isolationism.