Taus Makhacheva: Seeing, Touching, Imbibing

Giorgio Persano presents “Seeing, Touching, Imbibing”, a solo exhibition by Taus Makhacheva exploring the visual and physical dimensions of images as they are shaped and reshaped by history. At its core lies the film “ЦIумихъ (Tsumikh – ‘From the Eagle’)” (2023), which weaves autobiography, documentary, and performance to examine the life and legacy of the artist’s grandfather, Avar poet Rasul Gamzatov. Through cinematic re-enactments of busts, archival materials, and oral histories, Makhacheva reveals tensions between public and private memory, exposing how commemoration constructs and distorts legacy.

The second film, “Ясалъул яс (Yasalul yas – ‘The Daughter of the Daughter of’)” (2024), centres on a layered sculpture depicting three generations of Makhacheva’s family, from her great-grandfather Gamzat Tsadasa to her mother. This nested monument embodies preservation and erasure, reverence and concealment. Photographs and objects such as “The Making of” (2024) and “42.6729165, 47.7314644” (2023) further trace the transformation of memory into form.

By moving between intimacy and monumentality, Makhacheva questions who holds the right to shape history and how memory, once fixed, continues to breathe, shift, and transform.