Nikolai Ishchuk British-Russian, b. 1982
Leak XVIIIb, 2016
Silver gelatin print, fiber-reinforced concrete, acrylic, emulsion, polyurethane, lacquer
19 x 7 x 1 3/4 in
48.3 x 17.8 x 4.4 cm
48.3 x 17.8 x 4.4 cm
Unique
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Artist Statement: My photosculpture grapples with how the photographic medium can give rise to form and autonomous objects not anchored in straightforward representation.
It has developed from juxtapositions of contorted overpainted prints and concrete blocks to foreground the materiality of support (Indeterminate Objects), to combinations of freeform light streaks with architectonic forms pointing to the tangled relationship between photography and representations of architecture (early Leaks), and finally to photography as architecture — in the recent Leakpieces, the lines in printed light leaks serve as guides to three-dimensional forms. The folded shape is then interpreted in cast concrete with the print retained as a 'skin'. Thus simple light patterns or gradients — the most basic photographic marks — go from registration on paper to solid objects.
Hovering somewhere between the handmade, the industrial and the archeological, my sculptures also touch on how the formal can generate affect — or an illusion thereof. Another thread running through is one of ruins. "Contemporary ruin gaze is a gaze reconciled to perspectivism, to conjectural history and spatial discontinuity. [It] requires an acceptance of disharmony, of the contrapunctual relationship of human, historical and natural temporality". [Svetlana Boym in 'Ruins of the Twentieth Century', in Frieze Projects and Frieze Talks 2006-2008 . 2009. London: Frieze Publishing Ltd, p.166]
It has developed from juxtapositions of contorted overpainted prints and concrete blocks to foreground the materiality of support (Indeterminate Objects), to combinations of freeform light streaks with architectonic forms pointing to the tangled relationship between photography and representations of architecture (early Leaks), and finally to photography as architecture — in the recent Leakpieces, the lines in printed light leaks serve as guides to three-dimensional forms. The folded shape is then interpreted in cast concrete with the print retained as a 'skin'. Thus simple light patterns or gradients — the most basic photographic marks — go from registration on paper to solid objects.
Hovering somewhere between the handmade, the industrial and the archeological, my sculptures also touch on how the formal can generate affect — or an illusion thereof. Another thread running through is one of ruins. "Contemporary ruin gaze is a gaze reconciled to perspectivism, to conjectural history and spatial discontinuity. [It] requires an acceptance of disharmony, of the contrapunctual relationship of human, historical and natural temporality". [Svetlana Boym in 'Ruins of the Twentieth Century', in Frieze Projects and Frieze Talks 2006-2008 . 2009. London: Frieze Publishing Ltd, p.166]
Artist Statement: My photosculpture grapples with how the photographic medium can give rise to form and autonomous objects not anchored in straightforward representation.
It has developed from juxtapositions of contorted overpainted prints and concrete blocks to foreground the materiality of support (Indeterminate Objects), to combinations of freeform light streaks with architectonic forms pointing to the tangled relationship between photography and representations of architecture (early Leaks), and finally to photography as architecture — in the recent Leakpieces, the lines in printed light leaks serve as guides to three-dimensional forms. The folded shape is then interpreted in cast concrete with the print retained as a 'skin'. Thus simple light patterns or gradients — the most basic photographic marks — go from registration on paper to solid objects.
Hovering somewhere between the handmade, the industrial and the archeological, my sculptures also touch on how the formal can generate affect — or an illusion thereof. Another thread running through is one of ruins. "Contemporary ruin gaze is a gaze reconciled to perspectivism, to conjectural history and spatial discontinuity. [It] requires an acceptance of disharmony, of the contrapunctual relationship of human, historical and natural temporality". [Svetlana Boym in 'Ruins of the Twentieth Century', in Frieze Projects and Frieze Talks 2006-2008 . 2009. London: Frieze Publishing Ltd, p.166]
It has developed from juxtapositions of contorted overpainted prints and concrete blocks to foreground the materiality of support (Indeterminate Objects), to combinations of freeform light streaks with architectonic forms pointing to the tangled relationship between photography and representations of architecture (early Leaks), and finally to photography as architecture — in the recent Leakpieces, the lines in printed light leaks serve as guides to three-dimensional forms. The folded shape is then interpreted in cast concrete with the print retained as a 'skin'. Thus simple light patterns or gradients — the most basic photographic marks — go from registration on paper to solid objects.
Hovering somewhere between the handmade, the industrial and the archeological, my sculptures also touch on how the formal can generate affect — or an illusion thereof. Another thread running through is one of ruins. "Contemporary ruin gaze is a gaze reconciled to perspectivism, to conjectural history and spatial discontinuity. [It] requires an acceptance of disharmony, of the contrapunctual relationship of human, historical and natural temporality". [Svetlana Boym in 'Ruins of the Twentieth Century', in Frieze Projects and Frieze Talks 2006-2008 . 2009. London: Frieze Publishing Ltd, p.166]