Tobias Putrih
05 Sep - 24 Oct 2008
Re-projection
Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Re-projection, which presents a group of new works by Tobias Putrih that use light as their basic visual medium.
The central work on display is the luminous sculpture Re-projection, from which the exhibition takes its name. First exhibited earlier this year at the Galleria Civica in Modena, Italy, the work is composed of more than two hundred monofilament lines in a dark space partly illuminated by a spotlight. Related to Putrih’s reconstructions of cinema architecture, which occupy “the schizophrenic position of being simultaneously a sculpture and a display machine” (F. Manacorda), Re-projection embodies a metaphorical display device: an image appears when a beam of light illuminates the reflective lines and reveals their constellation – and the image within this structure. In Berlin, the third and last version of the luminous sculpture is displayed in juxtaposition with two other works produced especially for the exhibition: Reflection (Letter Format), a set of six black-and-white c-prints that present the image of a piece of white letter-format office paper folded in a simple form and reflected in the artist’s pupil, and Pre-projection, a sculpture that depicts the reflection of a hidden ceiling fan on a polished silver spoon.
Tobias Putrih’s works occupy a liminal territory between the real and the fictional, moving among concepts of visual models from science and art that reflect his interest in cinema, modernist architecture, and design. Film theoretician Stojan Pelko notes that Putrih returns the cinema to the visual arts by literally disassembling its apparatus. “The cinema,” Pelko says, “draws its fundamental fascination from the fact that somewhere in between the light of the projection beam and the screen, we trace the thought; we have the feeling that it is possible to think the thought and that we hold, suddenly, the key to the darkest secret, to the darkest chamber, to a camera obscura.” By the same token, the works and elementary forms of the present exhibition also transform the visual arts into cinema, for “the best cinema is always in the head.”
In conjunction with the exhibition, we are pleased to announce the artist’s participation in the upcoming art berlin contemporary exhibition event, which opens September 4 with Putrih’s large cardboard sculpture Connection II (2004–2008). More information about abc can be found at http://www.artberlincontemporary.com
Based in New York, Tobias Putrih (born 1972 in Kranj, Slovenia) has exhibited his work to great acclaim in both Europe and America. In 2002, he took part in Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt am Main; in 2005, he appeared in the show Greater New York at PS1 in New York; and in 2006, his project MUDAM’s Studio (a collaboration with Sancho Silva) was presented at the new Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM) in Luxembourg. In 2007, he represented Slovenia at the 52nd Venice Biennial and also had a survey show of his work in the Quasi-Random exhibition at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York. He has had solo shows at the Moderna Galerija’s Mala Gallery in Ljubljana in 2003, and at Galleria Civica in Modena in 2008. In 2007, he presented his work at our Ljubljana gallery, and since 2003 he has been exhibiting at the Max Protetch Gallery in New York.
Parallel to the show in Berlin, Putrih is presenting large-scale projects at attitudes – espace d’arts contemporains in Geneva and, with Runa Islam, at the White Cube Gallery in London. Shows later this year and early next year include solo exhibitions at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, at the Baltic in Newcastle and, with Runa Islam, at Kunsthaus Zurich.
Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Re-projection, which presents a group of new works by Tobias Putrih that use light as their basic visual medium.
The central work on display is the luminous sculpture Re-projection, from which the exhibition takes its name. First exhibited earlier this year at the Galleria Civica in Modena, Italy, the work is composed of more than two hundred monofilament lines in a dark space partly illuminated by a spotlight. Related to Putrih’s reconstructions of cinema architecture, which occupy “the schizophrenic position of being simultaneously a sculpture and a display machine” (F. Manacorda), Re-projection embodies a metaphorical display device: an image appears when a beam of light illuminates the reflective lines and reveals their constellation – and the image within this structure. In Berlin, the third and last version of the luminous sculpture is displayed in juxtaposition with two other works produced especially for the exhibition: Reflection (Letter Format), a set of six black-and-white c-prints that present the image of a piece of white letter-format office paper folded in a simple form and reflected in the artist’s pupil, and Pre-projection, a sculpture that depicts the reflection of a hidden ceiling fan on a polished silver spoon.
Tobias Putrih’s works occupy a liminal territory between the real and the fictional, moving among concepts of visual models from science and art that reflect his interest in cinema, modernist architecture, and design. Film theoretician Stojan Pelko notes that Putrih returns the cinema to the visual arts by literally disassembling its apparatus. “The cinema,” Pelko says, “draws its fundamental fascination from the fact that somewhere in between the light of the projection beam and the screen, we trace the thought; we have the feeling that it is possible to think the thought and that we hold, suddenly, the key to the darkest secret, to the darkest chamber, to a camera obscura.” By the same token, the works and elementary forms of the present exhibition also transform the visual arts into cinema, for “the best cinema is always in the head.”
In conjunction with the exhibition, we are pleased to announce the artist’s participation in the upcoming art berlin contemporary exhibition event, which opens September 4 with Putrih’s large cardboard sculpture Connection II (2004–2008). More information about abc can be found at http://www.artberlincontemporary.com
Based in New York, Tobias Putrih (born 1972 in Kranj, Slovenia) has exhibited his work to great acclaim in both Europe and America. In 2002, he took part in Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt am Main; in 2005, he appeared in the show Greater New York at PS1 in New York; and in 2006, his project MUDAM’s Studio (a collaboration with Sancho Silva) was presented at the new Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM) in Luxembourg. In 2007, he represented Slovenia at the 52nd Venice Biennial and also had a survey show of his work in the Quasi-Random exhibition at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York. He has had solo shows at the Moderna Galerija’s Mala Gallery in Ljubljana in 2003, and at Galleria Civica in Modena in 2008. In 2007, he presented his work at our Ljubljana gallery, and since 2003 he has been exhibiting at the Max Protetch Gallery in New York.
Parallel to the show in Berlin, Putrih is presenting large-scale projects at attitudes – espace d’arts contemporains in Geneva and, with Runa Islam, at the White Cube Gallery in London. Shows later this year and early next year include solo exhibitions at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, at the Baltic in Newcastle and, with Runa Islam, at Kunsthaus Zurich.