Primož Bizjak: The Grey World is Blue and Green |
16.05.2025 – 24.08.2025, Piran Civic Gallery –
Opening: 16.05.2025, at 6 p.m. |
Curator: Ištvan Išt Huzjan
Primož Bizjak, Passo della Focolaccia, Alpi Apuane, 2017, 150 cm x 188 cm, Courtesy: Primož Bizjak & Gregor Podnar Gallery.
EDITORIAL
Mara Ambrožič Verderber, Director PCG
This is the first major solo exhibition of the internationally renowned Slovenian artist in a national gallery framework. With this presentation, Piran Coastal Galleries fulfill a quality segment of the review of contemporary photographic production both in the regional and wider national space.
The author is a representative of the generation of Slovenian artists who established themselves on the art scene at the beginning of the new millennium. Long periods of residence and active artistic research abroad have contributed to the recognition of this artist in the international scene. His photographs are included in important public and private gallery institutions at home and abroad. His work is followed by art critics, art historians, curators, and gallerists such as Nora-Eugenie Gombringen, Simone Menegoi, Aurora Garcia and Maria de Corral, Guido Cecere, Valentin Sama and Riccardo Caldura. Besides the above, one should not overlook the famous figures from the field of world literature, such as Predrag Matvejević and philosophy, Massimo Cacciari.
The presentation of Primož Bizjak’s artistic oeuvre is part of the development policy of our public gallery institution, which monitors and evaluates the current artistic production of the authors belonging to Primorska region, whether through personal, overview or retrospective exhibitions. Primož Bizjak (1976, Šempeter pri Gorici) exchanged canvas and brushes for a photographic lens after graduating in painting at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. He achieved his first visible international successes precisely in this medium, first in Italy, later in Spain and finally in Germany.
The changing image of the natural and urban landscape is a popular motif in Primož Bizjak’s photographs, within which he explores abandoned and past-marked spaces, where we find unique architecture or images from nature. This also applies to the photographs from the Alpi Apuane series, which will form the core of the presentation of his personal exhibition at the Piran Civic Gallery. The exhibition included the artwork Antro del Corchia, 2015, acquired in the Piran Coastal Galleries collection in 2023 with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
The exhibition is being realized with the collaboration of Gregor Podnar Gallery in Vienna.
A unique conceptual approach that will offer a comprehensive overview of the artist’s creative period between 2004 and 2024 was designed by the established artist Ištvan Išt Huzjan, who curates the show.
THE GREY WORLD IS BLUE AND GREEN
Exhibition concept by Ištvan Išt Huzjan, curator of the show
The selection of works for the exhibition was created based on a dialogue between the poem As if the Whole World (Ves svet je kakor) by Srečko Kosovel (Integrali '26, Cankarjeva založba, 1967) and the body of work by Primož Bizjak from the period between 2004 and 2020, which includes the following series: Venice (Venezia) 2005–2006, Defence of Venice (Difesa di Venezia) 2005-2008/9, Sarajevo 2004–2006, Apuan Alps (Alpi Apuane) 2014–2017 and Munich ZOO 2017–2020.
The reason for reflecting on the poetic foundation of the exhibition is the work Corchia Cave, Mount Corchia (Antro del Corchia, Monte Corchia) from the series Apuan Alps from 2015, which is part of the Piran Coastal Galleries' collection. The photograph, which shows the entrance to the cave of one of the quarries of Carrara marble, reveals the grayness of the stone and the evening light that illuminates human interventions in the mountain, taking us into the perception of the world's colors, which the author of the exhibition captures with long exposures on a large-format analog camera.
This work thus introduces us to the exhibition The Gray World is Blue and Green at the entrance to the gallery.
In the central space of the gallery, the selection of works continues with the diptych Three Rivers (Tre Fiumi), also from the Apuan Alps series. From both sides of the diptych, the exhibition unfolds with the series Venice (Venezia) and Defence of Venice (Difesa di Venezia), offering views from an emptied canal and a look into the water from the entrance of the fortress walls in Marghera. After the Venice series, the installation is completed with a diptych from the Munich Zoo, depicting a snow-covered cage through which an artificial river flows.
One of the red threads in the various series of the selection, in relation to the work from the collection, thus becomes the relationship between humans and water.
Behind the stairs, on the same floor, there is another larger diptych from the Munich ZOO series. The photograph, taken in a birdcage, occupies the entire room due to the proportionality with the space. The viewer is thus placed within the photograph, emphasizing the idea of the discomfort of the “golden cage”, as the artist titled his last exhibition of works from Germany.
The exhibition continues on the second floor, on the balcony, where we rise with the birds above the staged greenery of the zoo.
At the top, two works from the Sarajevo series are displayed. The first shows a downward view over a cemetery, while the second depicts bullet holes in the inscription of the Bristol Hotel, through which we glimpse the besieged city. On this floor, the exhibition concludes with another piece from the Apuan Alps series, titled Focolaccia Pass (Passo della Focolaccia), which depicts a quarry from the top of a mountain pass. The top of the exhibition thus becomes a kind of viewpoint, where the stone from the quarry appears in one of its functions.
The arrangement of works on the first floor is accompanied by a video interview with the author from 2021, created during the artist's residency at Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia. A current critical text about the work of Primož Bizjak, written by Miha Colner, can be read in the printed exhibition guide available at the exhibition.
Artist's short biography
Primož Bizjak (*1976 in Šempeter pri Gorici, Slovenia) lives and works in Madrid. Selected exhibitions: Golden Cage at the Gregor Podnar Gallery, Vienna, AT, (solo) 2024; Firmitas Utilitas Venustas.A New Paradigm, Pavilion of Congo at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, IT, 2024; Space With a Potentiality for a Shift, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, SI, 2024–2025; (Everything Is) Not What It Seems, Civic Gallery, Piran, SI, 2022; Brave World, Telegraph Gallery, Olomouc, CZ, 2022; Photomenta – Photography From the Mediterranean, Eretz Museum, Tel-Aviv, IL, 2022; Hospital de Cartón, with Carlos Bunga, Galería Elba Benítez, Madrid, ES, 2020; Alpi Apuane, Center for Contemporary Arts, Celje, SI & CAP – Centro Arti Plastiche, Carrara, IT & Gregor Podnar Gallery, Berlin, DE (solo), 2019-2018; Difesa di Venezia, Galerija Gregor Podnar, Ljubljana, SI (solo), 2012.
For more information on Bizjak's CV visit: https://www.gregorpodnar.com/cms/primoz-bizjak/
