Tihomir Pinter / Spaces for the Play of Light

"Ironworks are by their nature spaces with deep social bearings, but Tihomir Pinter has never been interested in this aspect. He has rather focused on single cut-outs, objects, details, and on the tense or even conflicting light installation that takes shape through the working process and is particularly typical of such spaces.

Through the gaze of the camera, Pinter was exploring, unearthing and recording motifs of ironworks' interiors, silhouettes of workers' images or the features of their faces, and was attracted, above all, by ironware that came to form part of the context of the recorded moment, becoming the central artistic figure. He questioned the captured reality, real though it might be, and transformed the objectivity of the object into an abstract form. Hethoughtfullytook advantage of the sensual evidence of the material and bodily situations and, above all, their mise-en-scene, enhancing the configuration of the spirit but never up to the point of absolute psychic invention. Rather, he concentrated on the structure of image, the principle of stratification, the solitude of figures, the schematic rigidity of the setting-up and the compact composition of the event captured in the objective lens. As a result, his artistic production is closer to Constructivist patterns, and the intersection of historical experience is imbued with metaphysics and the absurdity of time. Intentionally pushing time to the margin enabled the artist to indirectly judge - through the camera and in symbiosis with creative imagination - a particular period of time, remaining always true to the »moment of the gaze« and completely disregarding the »moment of reality«".

The catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition: Spaces for the Play of Light, Federal Public Institution of Culure "Polytecnical Museum", Moscow. The exhibition was part of the project "Slovenian Route of Iron Culture", which is included in the European Iron Route Štore-Moscow, 2011.

Text: Alenka Domjan
Language: English, Slovenian, Russian
Size: 26 x 21 cm
Binding: softcover
Publisher: Štore Education Centre and Store Iron Museum, 2011