TEXT

I. Texts that inform and inspire me

"If I give a lecture in such a way that it is not clear what is being given, then      people have to do something about it."  John Cage

   

"I have nothing to say and I am saying it      and that is poetry as I need it."                 John Cage: Lecture on Nothing'

"The desert is less nature than a concept, a place that swallow up       boundaries. When the artist goes to the desert he enriches his absence      and burns off the water (paint) on his brain. The slush of the city,      evaporates from the artist's mind as he installs his art.  A consciousness of        the desert operates between craving and satiety".  Robert Smithson

 

"So it might be that the actual      outcome of all production, including      art production, is some kind of waste,      or obsolete system."  R. Smithson

           

II. Texts written by the artist

ABOUT SAND Sand is ambiguous. Isolated grains of sand are hard, durable and almost timeless. But many grains together, or the body that builds “sand”, consisting of countless tiny particles, is fleeting, ephemeral and transient. Sand can take on various forms and adapt itself to different surroundings. Sand constantly moves and never remains in the same position. It is very easy to disperse sand in all directions. It mixes with other materials, like dust, dirt, earth etc. and disappears. Deserts can appear flowing and can look like seas, especially when the wind creates formations similar to waves. There is a word in German, “Sandmeer”, describing exactly this phenomenon. That means the “Sea of Sand” or “Sand-Sea”. Sand is a preliminary stage to dust, and, in its turn, dust is that to nothingness. Dust is traditionally associated with death. In contrast, sand still bears life and displays wonderful colours. With my work, I try to fix sand in time, making it 'permanent' as a work of art. ABOUT DESERTS AND OTHER LANDSCAPES Deserts, their simplicity, structure, material quality and spiritual dimension have always fascinated me. I also like landscapes that are vast, empty, boundless, yet sometimes containing abstract forms and dramatic shapes. My favorite type of surface is mainly sandy or earthy, with creases, cracks and shifts in texture that reveal through their tightening, moving or breaking apart another layer underneath, deep and sometimes breathtaking beautiful. The sort of spirituality connected with this type of landscape - otherworldliness, inwardliness, absorption, seclusion and stillness – appeals to me as a kind of landscape of the soul. Other landscapes embody other ideas that could deal with past or future or other themes, such as immense plains covered with snow, so pure and detached, or “blue deserts” existing only in the artist’s mind.

BRICKS "A brick is a block or a single unit of a ceramic material used in masonry construction. Typically bricks are stacked together or laid as brickwork in horizontal courses using various kinds of mortar to hold the bricks together and make a permanent structure. The brick might be made from clay, lime-and-sand, concrete, or shaped stone. Originally, bricks were made from dried earth, usually from clay-bearing subsoil. It is either dried or, more commonly, it is fired in a kiln to form a firm block. Bricks have been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history. The oldest discovered bricks originally made from shaped mud and dating to before 7500 BC, were found at Tell Aswad, in the upper Tigris region and in southeast Anatolia, Turkey." *from Wikipedia. Bricks are one of the most powerful symbols of our civilization. Used as building material for houses, they aim to provide stability, protection and privacy. In contrast to this, my installations and sculptures utilize bricks as unsafe material addressing the idea of uncertainty and vulnerability of human existence. The bricks are taken out of their cultural context and put in the contest where they mean instability and danger. They are laid with their shortest side one on top of the other in shaky vertical rows - each is placed on the edge of the previous one. Such displacement underlines the unstable and unpredictable character of the whole structure that can collapse any moment.  With my brick constructions, I aim to evoke the impression of a bleak and desolated industrial landscape, a disrupted “city” on the verge of disintegration. They can be regarded as a gloomy vision and a meditation on the passage and the end of time.