Tolia Astakhishvili works and lives in Berlin and Tbilisi with a practice spanning across installation, sculpture, drawing, painting, sound, and video. In her work, she questions notions of space, its structure and relation to human existence, while exploring factual and imaginative narrative embedded in buildings.
Tolia's work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2023); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2023) and Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld (2023) among others. Her work has been included in group shows at Kunsthalle Zürich (2023); Molitor Gallery, Berlin (2023); Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin (2022); Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna (2022); Art Hub Copenhagen, Copenhagen (2021); Räume für Kunst, Kerpen (2021); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2021); Goethe Institute Bulgaria / Earth and Man National Museum, Sofia (2019); Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2019). Tolia Astakhishvili is one of the ten awardees of the 2024 Chanel NEXT PRIZE.
The art of sleeping (2024)
Car engines, pallets, plywood, cardboard, found objects, four-channel sound
87.6 x 386.1 x 231.1 cm
Tolia Astakhishvili’s The art of sleeping (2024) is an arrangement of nine used car engines under three sheets of plywood, resembling a makeshift platform or a stage. The engines are connected with rubber tubes forming a codependent assemblage, with various items (mainly household decorative memorabilia and tchotchkes e.g. boat, seashells, postcards, etc) dispersed in between, as in scattered containers of memory in a mechanic’s salvage yard.
Often working collaboratively, for this piece, Tolia included a soundscape composed by Dylan Peirce. The assemblage of different recordings evokes engines roaring and can be heard differently depending on the direction from which one approaches the sculpture.The tightly packed mass, combined with the resonating sound, embodies a latent energy, as if the sculpture is both in storage and on verge of movement.
The work is a remarkable instance of Tolia’s creation of spaces and situations that are in a stage of becoming or being undone, derelict or in progress, and examplifies Hartwig Art Foundation’s commitment to collecting experimental, unfixed and intermedia works.
– Sohrab Mohebbi
The art of sleeping (2024) is co-commissioned by SculptureCenter, New York and Hartwig Art Foundation. The work was selected by the Commissioning Committee and acquired through the Hartwig Art Production | Collection Fund. It will subsequently be donated to the Dutch state, becoming an integral part of the national art collection (‘Rijkscollectie’), available for institutions in the Netherlands and abroad.
The work premiered at SculptureCenter as part of the solo exhibition Tolia Astakhishvili: between father and mother (9 May – 12 Aug. 2024).