TOBIAS PUTRIH
SOLAR LIMB
curated by Sabine Schaschl
Selnaustrasse 25 - Zürich
5 June 2014 - 7 September 2014
Museum Haus Konstruktiv is delighted to be able to host Switzerland's first solo exhibition on the internationally acclaimed conceptual artist Tobias Putrih (b. 1972 in Slovenia, lives in Cambridge, MA). Putrih's interest in the utopias and ideologies of the traditional avant-garde, and his inquiry into how architecture, design, science and art can influence society, are particularly enlightening against the backdrop of constructivist-concrete art history. Putrih's works have already been shown in numerous highly renowned exhibitions and institutions: this artist was a representative of the Slovenian pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); his solo exhibition at Centre George Pompidou in Paris (2010) was also impressive, as were those at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK, (2009) and the Neuberger Museum of Art – State University of New York (2007). Putrih represents a young generation of artists who move freely between art forms, mainly paying attention to conceptual considerations. At Museum Haus Konstruktiv, an exhibition with new site-specific installations is presented.
Tobias Putrih took the first futurist opera, "Victory Over the Sun", as a starting point for the exhibition "Solar Limb". This opera premiered in 1913 at the Luna Park Theatre in Saint Petersburg, with Kazimir Malevich involved in the lighting design, costume design and stage design. Together with Kruchonych (libretto), Khlebnikov (prolog) and Matyushin (music), Malevich subverted the perceptual patterns of a highly rationally oriented worldview and sought an expressive power that went beyond the logic of language and form. In the opera's prolog, the "Futurist Strongmen" fight against the sun and want to lock it up in a concrete house. "The light of the sun is transferred to the interior: Our physiognomy is dark. Our light is within," proclaims the libretto. The struggle waged against the sun in the opera has often been seen as a political and artistic revolt against time-honored values. Malevich designed a stage curtain that, for the first time, showed a black square – as an icon of the "nothing that has become substance". As a painted image, the "Black Square" would become a key work in art history, and the initial work of suprematism. The fundamental inquiry into that which goes beyond the visible, and into the intellectual in art, also formed an important starting point for the theories of concrete art, and now plays a central role in Putrih's exhibition.
In the large exhibition hall on the first floor, the artist presents two video projections, together with a modular arrangement of seating furniture, which can be freely moved by the visitors. A projection directed at the floor is based on animated images of the sun's surface. This shows the so-called solar limb, the outer ring or edge of the sun. However, the image of the sun's core remains largely invisible. On the other hand, the wall projection shows an egg-shaped moving motif with a core of light, the light intensity of which decreases and increases. The egg form often appears in Putrih's work, and there are also many demonstrable instances of its use in the general history of art and culture. As the first form of housing for living creatures, it is a symbol for architecture, for protection, and for the source of something new. The artist generated this form with the aid of a photogram of a chicken egg. The light projected onto the wall is a negative of the original shadow image. The egg's interior remains largely concealed, even though the light in the photogram hints at its existence.
Putrih's exhibition on the first floor raises the question of the last possible light – either in the form of an almost invisible sun, of which only the edge can still be seen (floor projection) or in the form of a new light, seeking to break out of an egg-shaped universe (wall projection). Both are supplemented with sound composed by William Kingswood, who reinterpreted fragments of Matyushin's microtonal music for his composition, thus generating a direct link with the opera "Victory Over the Sun".
The works on the second floor express the admission that an image that comes from the world beyond objectivity can indeed ultimately only be represented via a conventional object. This representability can also be defined via a process that thematizes the disappearance of the object itself, as demonstrated by the new sculptures in the "Macula" series. Just like the image of the sun's edge, the object in question must also have an empty center – or the center absorbs the light. On the basis of these considerations, Putrih has conceived a series of translucent cardboard columns, the unchanging height of which is at odds with an increasing enlargement of the core diameter. The artist has cut rings into the tubes, so that they appear semi-transparent and generate a different visual perception, depending on where the observer stands. The empty center and the incisions enable a subtle optical game.
Putrih gives rise to a non-representational metaworld that atmospherically traces the revolutionary aspirations of the opera. Anyone who follows its tracks is carried off into an intellectual universe that advocates a dominance ("supremacy") of feelings. According to Putrih, the only option that the recipient is thus left with, is "to build a nest from the modular pieces of furniture, to arrange them, to engage with the atmosphere, and to think about the absent image". The artist sees the exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv as an attempt to create an image outside the objective world. One feels reminded of a postulate from Max Bill, which he formulated in the introduction to the catalog for the 1949 exhibition "Zürcher konkrete Kunst" (Zurich Concrete Art): "the goal of concrete art is to develop objects for intellectual use". Theo van Doesburg also demanded the following: "The artwork must be completely conceived and designed in the mind, before it is realized. It must contain none of formal circumstances of nature, the senses, or the feelings."
SOLAR LIMB
curated by Sabine Schaschl
Selnaustrasse 25 - Zürich
5 June 2014 - 7 September 2014
Museum Haus Konstruktiv is delighted to be able to host Switzerland's first solo exhibition on the internationally acclaimed conceptual artist Tobias Putrih (b. 1972 in Slovenia, lives in Cambridge, MA). Putrih's interest in the utopias and ideologies of the traditional avant-garde, and his inquiry into how architecture, design, science and art can influence society, are particularly enlightening against the backdrop of constructivist-concrete art history. Putrih's works have already been shown in numerous highly renowned exhibitions and institutions: this artist was a representative of the Slovenian pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); his solo exhibition at Centre George Pompidou in Paris (2010) was also impressive, as were those at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK, (2009) and the Neuberger Museum of Art – State University of New York (2007). Putrih represents a young generation of artists who move freely between art forms, mainly paying attention to conceptual considerations. At Museum Haus Konstruktiv, an exhibition with new site-specific installations is presented.
Tobias Putrih took the first futurist opera, "Victory Over the Sun", as a starting point for the exhibition "Solar Limb". This opera premiered in 1913 at the Luna Park Theatre in Saint Petersburg, with Kazimir Malevich involved in the lighting design, costume design and stage design. Together with Kruchonych (libretto), Khlebnikov (prolog) and Matyushin (music), Malevich subverted the perceptual patterns of a highly rationally oriented worldview and sought an expressive power that went beyond the logic of language and form. In the opera's prolog, the "Futurist Strongmen" fight against the sun and want to lock it up in a concrete house. "The light of the sun is transferred to the interior: Our physiognomy is dark. Our light is within," proclaims the libretto. The struggle waged against the sun in the opera has often been seen as a political and artistic revolt against time-honored values. Malevich designed a stage curtain that, for the first time, showed a black square – as an icon of the "nothing that has become substance". As a painted image, the "Black Square" would become a key work in art history, and the initial work of suprematism. The fundamental inquiry into that which goes beyond the visible, and into the intellectual in art, also formed an important starting point for the theories of concrete art, and now plays a central role in Putrih's exhibition.
In the large exhibition hall on the first floor, the artist presents two video projections, together with a modular arrangement of seating furniture, which can be freely moved by the visitors. A projection directed at the floor is based on animated images of the sun's surface. This shows the so-called solar limb, the outer ring or edge of the sun. However, the image of the sun's core remains largely invisible. On the other hand, the wall projection shows an egg-shaped moving motif with a core of light, the light intensity of which decreases and increases. The egg form often appears in Putrih's work, and there are also many demonstrable instances of its use in the general history of art and culture. As the first form of housing for living creatures, it is a symbol for architecture, for protection, and for the source of something new. The artist generated this form with the aid of a photogram of a chicken egg. The light projected onto the wall is a negative of the original shadow image. The egg's interior remains largely concealed, even though the light in the photogram hints at its existence.
Putrih's exhibition on the first floor raises the question of the last possible light – either in the form of an almost invisible sun, of which only the edge can still be seen (floor projection) or in the form of a new light, seeking to break out of an egg-shaped universe (wall projection). Both are supplemented with sound composed by William Kingswood, who reinterpreted fragments of Matyushin's microtonal music for his composition, thus generating a direct link with the opera "Victory Over the Sun".
The works on the second floor express the admission that an image that comes from the world beyond objectivity can indeed ultimately only be represented via a conventional object. This representability can also be defined via a process that thematizes the disappearance of the object itself, as demonstrated by the new sculptures in the "Macula" series. Just like the image of the sun's edge, the object in question must also have an empty center – or the center absorbs the light. On the basis of these considerations, Putrih has conceived a series of translucent cardboard columns, the unchanging height of which is at odds with an increasing enlargement of the core diameter. The artist has cut rings into the tubes, so that they appear semi-transparent and generate a different visual perception, depending on where the observer stands. The empty center and the incisions enable a subtle optical game.
Putrih gives rise to a non-representational metaworld that atmospherically traces the revolutionary aspirations of the opera. Anyone who follows its tracks is carried off into an intellectual universe that advocates a dominance ("supremacy") of feelings. According to Putrih, the only option that the recipient is thus left with, is "to build a nest from the modular pieces of furniture, to arrange them, to engage with the atmosphere, and to think about the absent image". The artist sees the exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv as an attempt to create an image outside the objective world. One feels reminded of a postulate from Max Bill, which he formulated in the introduction to the catalog for the 1949 exhibition "Zürcher konkrete Kunst" (Zurich Concrete Art): "the goal of concrete art is to develop objects for intellectual use". Theo van Doesburg also demanded the following: "The artwork must be completely conceived and designed in the mind, before it is realized. It must contain none of formal circumstances of nature, the senses, or the feelings."
