Exhibitions
Katja Goljat & Andrej Firm
Living Walls
Opening & performance: 3 June at 7.30 pm
3–30 June 2014
Prostor Gallery, Ljubljana
WHERE: Soteska 8, Ljubljana
Living Walls is the title of a performance-triptych of photographs developed by Katja Goljat & Andrej Firm created directly on the gallery wall. The artists transform the gallery space into a darkroom and their photographic triptych will be completed during the opening photographic performance, when the audience will be able to witness the creation of the last photograph – live.
In recent years (despite digitalisation, or perhaps because of it) a tendency towards a return to ‘analogue’ photography, which offers somewhat different visual aesthetics, can be observed in the field of contemporary photography. This trend is reflected in the (re)use of analogue cameras, the revival of older photographic techniques and a frequent experimentation with the different possibilities of the medium.
The photographic performance by Katja Goljat & Andrej Firm is dedicated in particular towards the revival of the magical experience of photography as a form of ‘drawing with light’ whereby rather than manipulating its content or motifs, the artists focus more on the very chemical processes used in its creation. There will be that brief moment during the development, under a red light, using the previously illuminated negative, when the photographic positive emerges but is still totally unstable in white light until it is fixed. A knowledge and understanding of the technical procedures is of key importance here; a photograph’s material tangibility is encoded by the creation of a paper print, but here the paper is to be replaced by a wall. Photography is now inseparably merged with the space in which this ‘non-transferable’ image is placed, making it a ‘site-specific’ installation. Indeed, a photograph developed in such a way is not intended for the long-term preservation of the motif, but instead left entirely to the ravages of time and light falling upon the wall, which will inevitably lead to its fading away.
Jasna Jernejšek
