Tobias Putrih
01 May - 27 Jun 2015
Tobias Putrih: Pale Guardians, exhibition view, Galerija Gregor Podnar, Berlin, 2015. Photo: Marcus Schneider
TOBIAS PUTRIH
Pale Guardians
1 May – 27 June 2015
As part of this year’s Gallery Weekend Berlin, Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to announce Tobias Putrih’s solo exhibition entitled Pale Guardians.
The exhibition presents new works: Guardians – a set of overlapping portraits depicting real and fictional characters, a couple of images of mysterious egg shadows, a room containing three chicken eggshell lamps projecting the form of a cracked eggshell onto the walls and a woolly structure forming ten second long soap membranes. It seems that Guardians are guarding a story about creation of a new space and formation of fragile membranes around it. They are guarding a tale about a new beginning.
The narrative starts with photograms of an egg – several negatives of an egg’s shadow – in this case, slightly enlarged prints are turned back into positive images (-lewk/n, 2013). The dark space is illuminated with chicken egg shells fixed on top of the stands with inserted LED lights, projecting an outline of the cracked hole on an eggshell’s surface (Fresh Territory I, II & III, 2015). The objects made out of hanging felted ropes, dipped into a tank filled with diluted soap, form brief ten to twenty second sculptures (Membrane Gray, Membrane White & Membrane Gray and White With a Trace of Red and Blue, 2015). And the story ends with two stacked cardboard structures (Macula Series J) where interference between thin transparent walls of layered cardboard create optic moiré patterns.
Tobias Putrih (b. 1972 in Slovenia), studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1997-1998). The artist made his breakthrough by participating in Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2002, followed by presentations at Venice Biennale (2007), Neuberger Museum of Art (2007), White Cube in London (2008), MACBA in Barcelona, Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010) and Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zürich (2014) among others. Putrih is best known for his work with everyday materials such as pasteboard, carton, styrofoam and plywood. The works range from sculpture, drawing and architectural installation to exhibition design and filmmaking. His uncertainties and questions regarding the process of designing and making objects often lead to intentionally fragile, interchangeable and dissolving structures, which undermine utility as the essence of their existence. Following architectural and product design, his works are mostly described as models, prototypes and mock-ups, objects stuck in the process of constant material and narrative reconstruction. Tobias Putrih lives and works in Cambridge, U.S., and Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Pale Guardians
1 May – 27 June 2015
As part of this year’s Gallery Weekend Berlin, Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to announce Tobias Putrih’s solo exhibition entitled Pale Guardians.
The exhibition presents new works: Guardians – a set of overlapping portraits depicting real and fictional characters, a couple of images of mysterious egg shadows, a room containing three chicken eggshell lamps projecting the form of a cracked eggshell onto the walls and a woolly structure forming ten second long soap membranes. It seems that Guardians are guarding a story about creation of a new space and formation of fragile membranes around it. They are guarding a tale about a new beginning.
The narrative starts with photograms of an egg – several negatives of an egg’s shadow – in this case, slightly enlarged prints are turned back into positive images (-lewk/n, 2013). The dark space is illuminated with chicken egg shells fixed on top of the stands with inserted LED lights, projecting an outline of the cracked hole on an eggshell’s surface (Fresh Territory I, II & III, 2015). The objects made out of hanging felted ropes, dipped into a tank filled with diluted soap, form brief ten to twenty second sculptures (Membrane Gray, Membrane White & Membrane Gray and White With a Trace of Red and Blue, 2015). And the story ends with two stacked cardboard structures (Macula Series J) where interference between thin transparent walls of layered cardboard create optic moiré patterns.
Tobias Putrih (b. 1972 in Slovenia), studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1997-1998). The artist made his breakthrough by participating in Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2002, followed by presentations at Venice Biennale (2007), Neuberger Museum of Art (2007), White Cube in London (2008), MACBA in Barcelona, Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010) and Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zürich (2014) among others. Putrih is best known for his work with everyday materials such as pasteboard, carton, styrofoam and plywood. The works range from sculpture, drawing and architectural installation to exhibition design and filmmaking. His uncertainties and questions regarding the process of designing and making objects often lead to intentionally fragile, interchangeable and dissolving structures, which undermine utility as the essence of their existence. Following architectural and product design, his works are mostly described as models, prototypes and mock-ups, objects stuck in the process of constant material and narrative reconstruction. Tobias Putrih lives and works in Cambridge, U.S., and Ljubljana, Slovenia.