STONE / Pillow |
Jan Pohribny's works in this exhibit bring out what is most playful, experimental and imaginative in his work. "Pillow" contrasts the gravity of a boulder with the levity of feathers. It is an immensely poetic work in the vein of painters like René Magritte or photographers like Miro Svolik. Rock is often a solid and immoveable marker that indicates the locus of an actual event or a resting place (a tomb), whereas a pillow is a soft spot where we rest our head for sleeping and thus, for dreaming. So "Pillow" is the meeting place of the actual world and the dreamt world. "Unshakeable Authority" uses the same kind of poetic logic to pose the question of authority as power to dictate or endure: is it the persistent erosion of water or the solidity of rock that will prevail? In these two works in which stone is the center of attention, Pohribny playfully poses serious questions about the other states of matter (liquid and gas) humanizing the comparison. In other words, are our lightest most imaginative thoughts worthier than our harder feelings or our most solid beliefs? Is our mercurial predilection for change more or less valuable than an immutable law? Pohribny is an artist in whose oeuvre stone is so pervasive that only a visit of his website can help the viewer grasp its scope. |