In autumn 2022, Giorgi Gagoshidze was in the middle of making a documentary film about the unravelling of the Soviet Union when he experienced his own personal system collapse. After returning from filming in Tbilisi to Berlin, where the 42-year-old Georgian artist lives, he was suffering from shortness of breath. An X-ray revealed that both his lungs had filled with water. He was told to get a taxi to the German capital’s Charité hospital straight away if he wanted to live.
View image in fullscreen Giorgi Gagoshidze in Berlin today. Photograph: Clara Ianni
Gagoshidze was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma, a rare, aggressive and fast-growing form of blood cancer in an advanced but curable stage. A brutal cocktail of chemotherapy followed by an eight-month hospital stay in isolation was his only shot at survival.
“Everything just collapsed,” he recalls. “And the art world is very merciless.
Continue Reading on The Guardian
This preview shows approximately 15% of the article. Read the full story on the publisher's website to support quality journalism.