GILFÉALGIÐ KYNNIR:
Laugardaginn 16. febrúar klukkan 14:00 opnar Peter Alexander sýninguna "Putins Playground" í Deiglunni.
Sýningin stendur til 20. febrúar 2008
Allir VELKOMNIR
Putins Playground (The second cold war) P.R ALEXANDER
25 photographic constructions from a Siberian wasteland
Alexander's principle interests primarily concern architectural and therefore social isolation.
Buildings are seen as lonely giants, as lost children perhaps, unable to communicate with each other let alone a foreign visitor.
Their purpose as functioning pieces of social and political design become increasingly questionable, both with the passage of time and rapid industrialization of the economies which first created them.
Alexander's photographic techniques have been developed over the last 9 years, from mainly shooting documentary and reportage based works, in Venice, Budapest, Istanbul and Copenhagen to a tighter more critical control over far fewer subjects.
The framing of the building is crucial, demonstrating the relationship with its political context. no man is an island, a man once said, however Alexander draws strong parallels between his personal existence and the buildings he chooses to photograph.
Everyday life for him is extremely complicated, aware of the intellectual process involved in the conception and design of his subjects, he is uniquely positioned to extract the precise information from them with explicit clarity, removing what he sees as unnecessary or ugly, such as trees, people cars soft edges and background noise, making sense of madness.
The display and layout of the images, is as important as the mode of capture. His use of negative space, of anti spaces and anti shapes to underline important aspects of the building or space to allow the viewer to consider the importance of the architecture as he sees it.
A fiercely political interest in Russia and its modern history formed the basis for a 6 week photographic exploration from the Ukraine to Hong Kong, entirely alone with only 2 bags and tweed jacket. during these travels, Alexander was arrested twice, chased in a train station, barked at by teenagers, ejected from 7 hotels, over charged for a shoeshine and lost 1.5 stones.
The 25 works demonstrate not only the range of varied and interesting buildings erected during the post Stalin era, but look to the future, to prophesise a dystopian inevitability, that awaits the west.
Use of Scale is extremely important in Alexander's work, this becomes critical in a country such as Russia or China, where the rules do not apply,he readily exploits this becoming playful and witty with the buildings form, narrative and purpose. Where architectural technologies and fashions are largely unaffected by western influence and labour is cheap, materials are readily available buildings in Russia assume an almost neolithic status.
In what, still is, a giant sandpit for the impotent businessman, Alexander's portrayal of a modern Russia in decline is utterly compelling
