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11/7/2013

Herman Pivk

UGM Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor

Curated by Andreja Borin

HERMAN PIVK
Night at the Window

Herman Pivk is renowned as a fine art photographer. After the incipiently "clean" photographs at the beginning of his career, he took up photographs, which he has been developing since the mid-eighties by applying different creative techniques. This means he has digressed from classical photography and has been brought closer to the subjectivity and uniqueness of the medium of painting. His unusual visualisation of reality and authentic personal language incite a new way of looking at the photographic medium and means he occupies a special position among contemporary Slovene photographers.

In his first solo exhibition at Maribor Art Gallery, Herman Pivk will display his recent two series, which capture the period 2004 to 2013. In terms of content, the title Night at the Window refers to the linking of two series: HO-GARDEN and HOTEL BA-BO. HOTEL BA-BO is a summary of what resides inside a hotel, and thus symbolically inside the individual; HO-GARDEN looks outwards through a window. The artist's interpretation which transforms real images into enigmatic inner visions connects them in a common story. In his photographs, Pivk continually uncovers the mantle of reality and elevates the disclosed into something transcendent. Through this, the transformation process of the photographic image brings a different experience of the photograph. Within the artistic processing, the photographic image crosses the threshold that is defined by its own medium. The artist's interventions into the photograph's positive in his earlier works (series Through the Mirror and Apprehending Nature) reveal his tendency to use several different procedures complemented by hand prints and similar things. These vigorous interventions introduce an inconceivable and often shuddering mystique by losing contact with the earthly world and approaching dream-like delusions. In his last series (HOTEL BA-BO, HO-GARDEN and H6), the artist interferes with the shot in a rather thoughtful manner and with mature restraint. Some works even emanate from the inside, subtly filling the object with transcendency.

In his recent works from the year 2012, Pivk more decisively moves away from tactile substantiality, which in places becomes unrecognisable. In the works where the photograph remains initially preserved, another complete transformation takes place in the sense of translucent metaphysical metamorphosis, which in terms of content is supported by floating and falling objects or objects outside their usual balance.

Despite some recent deviations, the trans-illuminated look into the disclosed worlds of the real remains a regular feature in the work of Herman Pivk. With images from this world, he addresses the profundity of the human soul, reveals its lonely and painful side, but shows the trans-illuminated images to the world in their lauded beauty. His perspective is the view of a maverick who, with the same attention, halts at a grotesque of a human, the look of animal eyes or a water reflection. In the exhibition Night at the Window, the narration winds around images of animals, people, lost and forgotten objects, visions of domiciles, flashbacks and memory. The viewer is transported from the level of the concrete world to the symbolic level of vision. In this vision, the message of animal images differs from the message mediated by the images of people. The animal figures communicate more plain existence, more pure and earthly presence. The animal figures (with few exceptions) are not torn out of their world, and although vulnerability exists in this world, it is clamped into existence itself and therefore does not jar so tragically as with human images. The human presence in the HO-GARDEN series is put entirely in the background; it merely appears as a premonition. The garden (of the world) without a human presence actually breathes much more freely. In contrast to this, the HOTEL BA-BO series shows the strongly accentuated other side: absurdity, being torn out of the whole (the creation) and loss of purpose. The human figures with their poise, placement into the space, meaningless pursuits and absurd venues accentuate hopelessness, isolation or at least a dead end. Individuals try to painfully escape from this situation or (rarely) enraptured – reach beyond it. Thus, the range of both series could be summed up as: the world outside is still in place, the real drama happens inside (of us).

The language of Pivk's images is modern in terms of content and simultaneously archaic, in the sense of ancient. With its implementation, the artist expresses deep and ancient visions. The themes loneliness, isolation and alienation in his works do not only reflect time, but also carry the echo of the universal sojourning perception of the human race. Restlessness, questioning the meaning, doubt about the individual's role in society and the world, the weight of guilt and mistake are themes of humankind since antiquity that we have inherited. Pivk's figures reflect the whole tragedy of antique heroes: King Lear's despair, Jason's betrayal, Medea's madness, Odysseus' wandering etc. Inside of them we sense the weight of the individuals who carry the awareness about the range of darkness and light inside. This is the foundation of Pivk's exceptional and unrepeatable portraits of Slovene visual, literary and dramatic artists.

Herman Pivk presents and exhibits his works in his very own manner. He does not lead the observer via the logic of a narrator, but creates by beading the images certain sensations and feelings. Fragments of images glint and step out of the darkness of the night before the spectator. Their instant, but light-exposed presence is as fragile as our own, which brings them closer to us than it seems at first sight.

More about the artist and his work at: www.hermanpivk-foto.si

Opening: Friday, 12 July 2013 at 20:00

UGM Maribor Art Gallery
Strossmayerjeva ulica 6, Maribor
Free Admission

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