Vadim Fishkin: Light Matters

Vadim Fishkin's solo presentation at KiBela gallery is intended dialogically on multiple levels, since traces of dialogue can be observed in all segments of the forming of the exhibition – from the initial conceptualization of the idea of artist and curator, through the selection of artworks, to their presentation at the gallery. Although the gallery organization is a kind of confrontation of the older and the more recent production of Vadim Fishkin, it is not a typical retrospective exhibition, for it is problem-based and wishes to address specific perspectives and characteristics. Three of them should be highlighted at this point, those that appear constantly in the artist's opus and are more or less present in all of his works, regardless of whether they explore the relationship between the spectator and the work of art, or re-examine the function of technology, its absurd and the poetics in the context of contemporary visual art. Most of all, it is a kind of thought on Fishkin's conceptualist tradition which is constantly intertwined with new technologies and science, thus exposing the unlimited possibilities of fine arts' expression.

The starting point and conceptual operator to Vadim Fishkin’s exhibition organization at KiBela gallery is its exhibition space, which is, in a completely stripped form drawn by the ground plan, reminiscent of ground plans of Old Christian basilicas and their later Romanesque upgrades. Namely, the longitudinal gallery space is structured in a ratio of 1:2:1 – the ratio of the nave to the two side aisles, separated from the nave by pillars. However, for a perfect impression of a basilica, the most important element is missing – the light. In Romanesque basilicas the architectonic solution was provided by the building of clerestories that provided an additional source of light to the space. At KiBela gallery, no architectonic intervention will be made to the gallery space or its physical transformation; the organization focuses on the Vadim Fishkin’s works that are based on the medium of light and thereby bring light to the space. His works will symbolically bring a fresh perspective, light, to a strictly encoded architectonic space with no light, enabling its symbolic transformation. Light and ephemerality have always marked the author’s thoughts on art, since light is, as he says himself, a category that is both completely ephemeral and entirely physical at the same time. This very thought is in fact included in the exhibition; as artworks of light actually redefine the space in a new manner. The ephemeral is transferred from the periphery to the center and begins to co-create the totality of organization. Once again, the artwork and the organization cannot exist without the relation between the material and the immaterial, without that tension that is formed between them; moreover, the light places the material part of the artwork into an interdependent relationship, while the spectator is confronted relentlessly with the facts of the spectator-artwork-light-space relations.

The dialogic interlacement of artworks and gallery space definitely exposes Fishkin’s key formal and contents-directions and outlines a common thread running in his artistic practice. Throughout his work the formal and the content components are being dramatically connected by poetics, which adds that extra quality to a work of art, not closing it inside hermetic discourse, but opening it outwards – mostly in the sense of perception and understanding that is not reduced to a monolith apprehension of formality or contents, but creates an interdependence between the two components. (Tevž Logar)

Curated by Tevž Loga, artistic director Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana.

Production of the works - DUM - Društvo Umetnikov.
Support: Mestna občina Ljubljana, Oddelek za kulturo / Municipality of Ljubljana, Departement for Culture, Ministrstvo za kulturo RS / Slovenian Ministry of Culture.

Courtesy for the works - Galerija Gregor Podnar.

More info http://www.vadimfishkin.si/

Kindly welcome. Admission free.
The exhibition will be on display until 21 September.

9 September 2011 – 21 September 2011
Opening: 9 September 2011 at 8 pm
Kibela / KIBLA Maribor

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KiBela, Space for Art is open every day 9.00 am to 10.00 pm, Saturdays 4.00 pm to 10.00 pm, the gallery is closed Sundays.
MMC KIBLA wishes to thank the following for their support: EU-EACEA, Culture Programme, Brussels, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Maribor and Office of Youth.