Tolia Astakhishvili

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, Tolia 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). Tolia 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).

With Zurab Astakhishvili, Aurel, Ştefan Bertalan, Kaucyila Brooke, Veronica Brovall, Günter Brus, Elene Chantladze, James Ensor, Nan Goldin, Yaryna Fedoriv, Irma Gubeladze, Ull Hohn, Paul Joostens, Alison Knowles, Louise Lawler, Charlotte Moorman & Nam June Paik, Dylan Peirce, Pablo Picasso, Charlotte Posenenske, James Richards, Irena Rosc, Medardo Rosso, Dieter Roth, Maka Sanadze, Heimo Zobernig, and others.

Curated by Fatima Hellberg and Manuela Ammer.