Tobias Putrih: Compressões

Represented by the gallery for three years now, Tobias Putrih (Slovenia, 1972) presents his first solo show at Luciana Brito Galeria, Compressões [Compressions]. Departing from Rino Levi’s concept of a living room compressed between two layers of tropical garden – also designed by Burle Marx –, screens of corrugated extensible cardboard create semitransparent barriers in the exhibition space. The flexible honeycomb cardboard used in furniture industry as a filling material in a door construction is manipulated by subtle compressions. The artist uses colored laundry clips to develop playful visual distortions and at the same time controls transparency of the panels. The show installation features 13 honeycomb panels suspended from the ceiling redefining Levi’s house "living room" space and directing visitors’ view on the garden.

The flexible honeycomb cardboard structure serves the artist as an “open” structure, and different distortions of the structure are proposals for possible “play” scenarios. Often positioning his sculptures and architectural installations as performative objects and spaces, Putrih is ultimately interested in functionality and possibility of viewers' interaction with the object. In this case the gallery will organize a workshop with children from the local school where kids will be able to construct their own panels and constructions using honeycomb cardboard, scissors, paper glue and laundry clips.

The gallery also features the second installation created by the artist from five small rocks mounted on top of five framed inkjet prints. Entering prehistoric cave Potocka Zijalka on the mountainous border between Slovenia and Austria, Putrih collected rocks and measured the amount of light beside each rock. These measured values - from a sunny entrance to the cave to a pitch black darkness of its depths - were then translated into the monochromatic prints, from white, different values of gray to black. 

Questioning “performance” value of random rock found in a cave, Putrih points the viewer towards an empty image. He again positions the artwork as a scenario, offering to the visitor a simple almost nonsensical “protocol” of engagement with a random rock inside particular cave.

Art Weekend

The opening of the exhibitions is part of the Art Weekend program, that happens on the weekend prior to the inauguration of 32nd São Paulo Biennial. The action is coordinated by Abact’s (Brazilian Association for Contemporary Art) Projeto Latitude – whose current president is Luciana Brito – and aims to create a contemporary art circuit in the city with several simultaneous openings.

During Art Weekend, the gallery remains open on Friday, from 5pm to 10pm, and on Saturday and Sunday, from 12pm to 8pm.