Tobias Putrih
Slovenia
Apartments / Forma viva 2014
steel plates / 400 m2 / Javornik, Ravne na Koroškem
The Dwellings sculpture will be set up in Javornik, on the lawn between the school, the kindergarten and the apartment blocks. It is made of 3-mm steel plate, cut into 220 pieces of 12 different sizes. The plates are curved by 120 degrees at the edges, which gives them structural firmness. There are holes drilled into the plates, which makes the sculpture lighter and enables the play of light. The vertical walls are connected by smaller horizontal elements, which invite the viewer to enter. The Dwellings sculpture, which extends over the area of 400 m 2 and reaches even six metre in height, presents new challenges to Forma Viva and it facilitates a more genuine contact between art and the local population.
Tobias Putrih was born in 1972 in Kranj. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, graduating in 1997. He continued his postgraduate studies at the Art Academy (Kunstakademie) in Düsseldorf, Germany (1997–1998). In 2002, he received the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation Award. He has participated in several important international shows, including Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt (2002), ArtUnlimited in Basel, Fridericianum in Kassel (2003), the 2007 exhibition “Multiplex – Directions in Art, 1970 to Now” at MoMA, New York, the 29 th Biennial in São Paulo, Brazil (2010), Queensland Art Gallery in Queensland, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, Canada, and numerous others. He has held solo exhibitions in Slovenia, Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, South Korea, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium, and the USA. His works are included in public collections in several important museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Mudam (Musée d’ Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) in Luxembourg, the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna galerija) in Ljubljana, the Neuberger Museum of Art in New York, the Queensland Art Gallery in Queensland, and the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. He has participated in public competitions in Moscow, Warsaw and New York. In 2007, he represented Slovenia at the 52 nd Venice Biennial. Hi lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
