Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation will begin the transformation of an historic Venetian edifice previously the property of the painter Ettore Tito during the 1920s, to create new exhibition spaces in the heart of the Venice’s Dorsoduro district, with a major site-specific installation by Georgian artist Tolia Astakhishvili, opening on 7th May 2025.
The opening installation, taking over the entire building, is created by Tolia Astakhishvili and curated by Serpentine Gallery Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, will run from 7th May – 23rd November 2025, to coincide with the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Astakhishvili lived and worked at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation for the first months of 2025, engaging with the space. Her installation delves into the material history of the building, questioning the ways in which we build and spend time in different spaces, and the existential uncertainty that pervades this lived experience. Transforming the current building through structural modifications to the walls and spaces, Astakhishvili incorporates text, painting and drawing to create a temporary spatial intervention with a profound sense of destruction, distortion and fragmentation. Astakhishvili’s delicate drawings, featured in the installation, further connects to the significance of drawing in Nicoletta Fiorucci’s art collection.
At her invitation, the work of eight other artists will be featured in the installation, blurring the boundaries between individual and collective artworks. The other artists are Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Zurab Astakhishvili, Thea Djordjadze, Heike Gallmeier, Rafik Greiss, Dylan Peirce, James Richards, and Maka Sanadze.
