September 10, 2005 – October 10, 2005
The works of Malmö based artist Alexander Gutke bear a poetic notion revealing different perceptions of time and almost alchemical transformations of various media. In Galerija Gregor Podnar we will present his selected works of the last three years.
Alexander Gutke’s filmic work The White Light of the Void (2002) is a kind of transformation turning the viewer’s expectations of suspense into a hypognostic daydream-like situation. The empty movie sequence projected on a white wall starts to melt after a short time as if the bulb of the 16mm projector would have had burned the film while it jammed in the running projector. The entire film consists of a DV-animation recorded on 16mm film and presented as a loop. The digital effect that simulates the burnout of analogue film material has been transferred back into its original medium, allowing the simulated damage on the film to blend with the actual wear of the film material that is gradually added as the loop runs through the projector over and over again.
The video installation How to Fold the Best Paper Air Plane in the World (2004/05) consits of two projcetions of two typs of paper air planes. Each projection depicts a sequence of still images which begins with an image of a white sheet of A4 paper projected in it’s original size directly to the surface of the wall. The sequential images in one of the slide show describe, in 45 steps, how to fold a ‘papperssvala’, the swedish name for one of the most common paper airplanes in the world. The instruction piece, refering to step by step instruction books and educational tv shows, is on the other hand also simply a projected white monocrome being folded into a new medium.
At the exhibition we will show also a paper work from the Wastebasket series (2004), which is made of origami pieces in stereometric shapes. The play with inversed formal states is as well part of the most recent work of Alexander Gutke’s Exploded View (2005). The work shows 81 cuts of a sliced Kodak Carousel slide projector. The sequence of slides describes a journey that turns an optical device into a subject of our gaze. It reminds of Jules Verne’s ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ where invisible becomes visible and where the impossible becomes real.
In 2004 Alexander Gutke has been taking part in the exhibitions Modesty in Galerija Škuc / Mala galerija in Ljubljana, Emotions Eins at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Rendez-Vous at Museé Art Contemporain in Lyon, and (Dys)function at Lund’s Konsthall (together with Attila Csörgő), for instance. This autumn he will participate with the gallery’s engagment at the Temporary Import exhibition curated by Susanne Titz in the framework of the Art Forum Berlin. He had his most recent solo presentation at Baltic Art Center in Visby.
The exhibition has been made possible in collaboration with Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Cultural Department of the City of Ljubljana, IASPIS – International Studio Program in Sweden, Stockholm, Konstnärsnämnden, The Artists Grant Committee, Stockholm, BAC – Baltic Art Center, Visby. Special thanks to Roman Uranjek, Lili Nedič from Kinoteka Ljubljana and Galerija Škuc, Ljubljana.