Tornike Robakidze at Lo Brutto Stahl

Artist: Tornike Robakidze

Exhibition title: My voice suspended in the air

Venue: Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris, France

Date: June 10 – July 29, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris

TEXT BY AGNES GRYCZKOWSKA

It’s like edging till the end of time.
Edging the orgasm of death.
Edging the end of love.
Edging in pastel and watercolor.
The fog has failed to release him.
While shoe-gazing death, he’s been walking his skull on a leash, as if it were a dog.
It would roll into puddles of rainwater, into mud, into the gutter, into the sea, bash into trees.
It would roll through the meadows so wide open that their vastness would make the skull shiver.
When frightened, the skull would rise above the heads, convulse and shine like an ironic beacon—an infernal torch of satanic grace. Suspended in the air—the existential crisis of death.

He would drag it and drag it to the very edge, the edge of her, the edge of you, all the way to the blurry edges of his consciousness—losing control in slow motion. Fire of his mind.
The flames burn un-rushed.
Embers are starting to fly up to the sky.

He is listening to their sound until warm darkness soaks his eyes.
He is moving from room to room. He sits on his bed, smokes a cigarette.
The smoke is heavily hanging in the air, so still.
Over he goes to the window and looks out into the bright summer night, so warm, full moon—small and white, trees bending and then as his arm goes up to touch the last flying ember… he thought he heard her whisper. It happens all the time.
The voice suspended in the air.
He can smell something—that wound from two years ago opens, the decaying memories ooze out.
“Did she love me for that which destroys me?”
The violence creeps up—violence in slow motion.
The blades of his dreams.
The flames of his mind.
The dust of his thoughts.
The shadows of his eyes.
The birds and swans are singing, then dying in squeaking pain as his heart is being stabbed without a knife.
His body is leaving his own, so often.
“Hold my hand”, she said.
He tried to reach out for it, but it vanished. She vanished. It all vanished.
And he goes out at three in the morning to start his search for her.
As if he had dreamt a place where she would be standing, he goes to that place and waits for her.
What does she look like?
And how will he know when he sees her?
Her face is pasted on the underside of his mind.
But as the long summer shadows fall, he cannot find her anywhere.
Nowhere left to turn an ineffectual mortal spasm, the only alternative to murder.
So he is edging till the end of time.
Seeing things.
Hearing things.
Screaming things, with his tongue out, tied.
As the iridescence of the day comes, the monks are in ecstasy.
Standing on top of heaps of human bones, self flagellating with massive grins on their faces, singing Dies Irae.
He stares at them as he is feeling that the summer will last eternity and a day.
“Love is a state of infinite detail.”1
He wakes, the skull is stuck in his new lover’s throat, just above her pendant.
He tries to get it out.
Then decides to just leave it in for a little bit longer.
He kisses her lips, but they are not the lips he wants to kiss.
He then slowly gets his skull out, puts it back on a leash and continues edging the orgasm of death, edging the death of love which never dies.

1 Tornike Robakidze

Tornike Robakidze, My voice suspended in the air, 2023, exhibition view, Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris

Tornike Robakidze, The night I kissed you, 2022, Oil on canvas, 63 x 83 cm | 24 3/4 x 32 5/8 inches (framed)

Tornike Robakidze, One life left, 2022 Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 25 x 35 cm | 9 7/8 x 13 3/4 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Time and God, 2022, Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 36 x 46 cm | 14 1/8 x 18 1/8 inches (framed)

Tornike Robakidze, Unique but doomed, 2023, Oil on canvas, 197 x 265 cm | 77 1/2 x 104 3/8 inches

Tornike Robakidze, You destroy everything (1), 2022, Watercolor on canvas, 20 x 30 cm | 7 7/8 x 11 13/16 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Alive, tired, but happy forever, 2023, Oil on canvas, 193 x 239 cm | 76 x 94 1/8 inches

Tornike Robakidze, The strongest one, 2022, Oil on canvas, 36,5 x 46,5 cm | 14 3/8 x 18 1/4 inches (framed)

Tornike Robakidze, Untitled, 2023, Oil on canvas, 15 x 12 cm | 5 7/8 x 4 3/4 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Untitled, 2022, Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 40 x 50 cm | 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches (framed)

Tornike Robakidze, A thousand times, 2023, Hardpastel on canvas, 150 x 150 cm | 59 x 59 inches

Tornike Robakidze, It seems that death exists, 2021, Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 40 x 30 cm | 15 3/4 x 11 13/16 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Universe forgot death, 2022, Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 22 x 30 cm | 8 5/8 x 11 13/16 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Love in only two square meters, 2022, Oil on canvas, 22 x 32 cm | 8 5/8 x 12 5/8 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Untitled, 2023, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm | 15 3/4 x 11 13/16 inches

Tornike Robakidze, Untitled, 2021, Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 30 x 30 cm | 11 13/16 x 11 13/16 inches

Tornike Robakidze, There are always eyes and sights on the battlefield, 2022, Watercolor/mixed media on canvas, 140 x 170 cm | 55 1/8 x 66 7/8 inches