All photographs are by John Hill/World-Architects
An Interim Installation
John Hill
All photographs are by John Hill/World-Architects
On top of the International Architecture Exhibition, the national pavilions, the collateral events, and the other official components of the Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice is host to numerous exhibitions and events that take advantage of the influx of architects to the city during the six months of the Biennale, from May to November. One such exhibition is Tolia Astakhishvili: to love and devour at Dorsoduro 2829, a new home for the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, the London nonprofit “that promotes experimentation and innovation in contemporary art and design with a focus on ecology, sustainability, and inclusivity.”
Although an art exhibition, architecture is at the core of to love and devour, specifically the architecture of the building it occupies and makes an integral part of the exhibition; overlapping the exhibition with the Venice Architecture Biennale therefore makes perfect sense. Hans Ulrich Obrist, the show's curator, describes it as a “Gesamtkunstwerk, but one which is not overpowering, imposing or didactic, but rather allows the viewer multiple entry points.”
World-Architects visited a couple days after the exhibition opened, walking throughout the installation and taking some photographs—they are below, accompanied by some additional information on the exhibition and the other artists whose works are displayed alongside those of Tolia Astakhishvili.
Entering the building at Dorsoduro 2829, one sees directly through to the courtyard, enabled by walls removed and cut down to waist height; exposed pipes and wires reinforce the appearance of a found ruin or a construction site in progress.
Although there is no prescribed path through the building's roughly dozen rooms spread across two floors, natural light pulls visitors in certain directions.
Following the light in the previous photo leads to this room and Suddenly, the world became loud II (2024) by Tolia Astakhishvili and Zurab Astakhishvili, Tolia's father.
Much of the ground floor is open, aligned with the way it was used by painter Ettore Tito, who built an illegal extension into the courtyard in the 1920s.
Sections of drywall from Tolia Astakhishvili's when the others are within us (2024) sit in the center of the large space.
Cups, wires, and other found objects are spread along the base of the drywall box, but it's the relatively uncluttered top surface that draws our attention…
…There, cutlery is embedded into the drywall, giving the impression of a large dining table that hardly functions as one.
The importance of windows and natural light is reiterated in the adjacent Nails (2025) by Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili.
At the back of the large ground-floor space (see photo at top) is Tolia Astakhishvili's each year, the same season (2025), which covers a large window facing the courtyard.
A corollary to the natural light pulling visitors through the building is the curiosity piqued by dark rooms, such as this room on the ground floor with I Remember (Depth of Flattened Cruelty) (2023), a ten-minute video by Tolia Astakhishvili and James Richards.
Let's head upstairs, via a back stair adjacent to the dark room in the previous photo.
Continuing up the stair and turning right, there is a soft, lantern-like glow…
…Tolia Astakhishvili's you can't please everyone (2025) covers large windows facing the courtyard with a light box, its plexiglass surfaces “painted” with shadows cast by the objects within.
The plexiglass also features apt messages.
The second-floor windows, with their arched tops and glass discs, have a larger impact on one's experience of the rooms and the artworks integrated into them than the ground floor.
A corner room bathed in light from five windows on two sides is home to Tolia Astakhishvili's to love and devour (2025) on the wall and alone with you (2025) by Astakhishvili and Dylan Pierce in the middle of the room.
Mirrors, missing walls, and other modifications to the palazzetto make exploring each room and turn of corner a surprise.
My favorite space in the exhibition was technically three rooms in one; here, we are looking from a bedroom into bathrooms that were added in the 1970s.
The wall between the bathrooms since removed, the plumbing propped up in space becomes a piece of found art: my emptiness (2025). The canvas on the wall is Tolia Astakhishvili's I have to tell you my dream before I wake up too much (2018-2024).
Back in the hall, the space atop the stair first encountered when entering the building looks like it would be home in a horror film: the covered windows, the dark bed built over the stair, and the mural, none of which are labeled in the key plan visitors can use to find the artworks spread across the exhibition.
