VAJIKO CHACHKHIANI: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Myths endure and extend in Vajiko Chachkhiani’s (ვაჟიკო ჩაჩხიანი) interdisciplinary artistic practice.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, Living Dog among Dead Lions (2017), installation view, Georgian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Photo Sandro Sulaberidze, courtesy Daniel Marzona.

The artist, who lives and works in Tbilisi and Berlin, invokes tension in his films, sculptures and installations, grappling with penance and impunity, often of a familial nature. Wax, wood and flame are recurring motifs throughout his portfolio. Fires burn — slowly, deliberately, inevitably.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends (2016), installation. Courtesy Daniel Marzona.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, Death Chase (2020), installation view. Photo Thomas Burns, courtesy Daniel Marzona.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, Unwelcome Thought (2020), installation view. Courtesy Daniel Marzona.

Chachkiani’s visual language possesses its own vernacular, filled with words such as singe, expunge and lure, which merge with a rumbling, rusting rapport. There are burdens to bear throughout his portfolio; his characters are abundantly recognizable, and often assume responsibilities out of a sense of duty — surely one of the ficklest senses of all. Sticks and stones may break bones, while words are seldom spoken.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, Heavy metal honey (2018), still from video. Courtesy Daniel Marzona.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, Shivering Heart (2018), film still. Courtesy Daniel Marzona.

Chachkhiani is widely esteemed for Winter which was not there (2017), a short film that was commissioned for PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Art Prize. In the work, the statue of an anonymous, but authoritative man is dredged from a lake. He is then hitched to the back of a weathered Toyota truck and towed facedown from the rural waterfront towards a sizable town, eroding further and further with each passing kilometer. The truck drives without theatrics, drawing inquisitive, albeit muted reactions from a herd of cattle and the few pedestrians by the roadside. Near the end of the journey, there is little material left on the monument’s metal skeleton — his molded muscle has been turned to dust, scattered like ashes across the barren landscape. Then he is no more: only the ropes remain, tethering nothing.

Vajiko Chachkhiani, Winter which was not there (2017), film still, single channel HD video. Courtesy Daniel Marzona.

Winter which was not there is an elegy without affliction — the antithesis of Achilles’ vengeful dragging of Hector’s body around the walls of Troy after the latter warrior’s fatal defeat. In Flies bite, it’s going to rain (2018/2019), another elegy is overgrown and mingled with brambles. Originally realized at YARAT Contemporary Art Space in Baku and subsequently presented at Art Basel, the large-scale installation comprises soil, wood, clay and plaster. Fragments of classical statues are embedded in a thicket of brush. Peering in from the work’s perimeter, visitors glimpse severed limbs and torsos. To enter or excavate the installation would be to ravage it; Flies bite, it’s going to rain simultaneously asserts its sentience and evokes the temptation to pillage it.