Foundations in Art, Design and Spatial Practices (Spring 2024)
4.302
Tobias Putrih engages 20th century avant-gardes, particularly utopian and visionary con-cepts of architecture and design, through a range of conceptual and materially ephemeral projects. He designs makeshift architectural modifications of public spaces—cinemas, a library, galleries, and a university commons—constructing temporary environments out of paper, cardboard, plywood, monofilament, and light. Sculptures are made of fugitive materi-als such as soap bubble membranes, or through precise handling of everyday manufac-tured materials like Styrofoam and cardboard. His sculptures are products of precisely specified processes while also responding to their sites; some sculpture is problematized as furniture to be moved and inhabited, privileging bodily engagement over vision. Putrih deals with artworks as proposals, maquettes, or models—exploratory assertions of radical possibilities, the idea of the monument reconceptualized as something momentary and ex-perimental.
He was born 1972 in Kranj, Slovenia. Major presentation of his work include solo shows at Museum Boijmans Van Beunigen, Rotterdam; Fondazione Prada, Milan; MIT List Center, Cambridge and Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich. His larger installations include an exhibition at Espace315 at Centre Pompidou, Paris and at Capella MACBA, Barcelona; and collabora-tions with filmmaker Runa Islam at Galeria Civica in Modena and Kunsthaus, Zurich. Group exhibitions he has participated, include TRACK, Smak, Ghent; Forms of Resistance, VanAbbe Museum, Eindhoven; Manifesta 4, Frankfurt and 29th Sao Paulo Biennale. In 2007 he represented Slovenia at the Venice Biennale. His work is included among others in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’ Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg and Museum Boijmans Van Beuni-gen, Rotterdam.
Books & Catalogs:
Quasi-Random; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, 2006
Venetian, Atmospheric; Slovenian Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, 2007
99-07; JPR/Ringier Press, Zurich, 2007
Lost Cinema Lost; Galeria Civica, Modena, 2008 (with Runa Islam)
Without Out; MIT List Center, Cambridge, 2009 (with MOS Architects)
Siska, International; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2010
White City; Villa Merkel, Esslingen, 2012
Revolution Square; ARKO Art Center, Seoul, 2013
Solar Limb; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich 2015
Perceptron, Hatje Cantz Press, 2021 (upcoming)
