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until 13.01. | #4107ARTatBerlin | FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph (FWR) shows from 18. November 2023 the exhibition „Midnight Sun“ by the artist Marta Djourina.
The title “Midnight Sun” not only describes a natural phenomenon that occurs at both poles of the Earth when the rotation of the Earth’s axis reaches a certain alignment with the Sun, but also represents the disappearance of the duality between day and night, between distance and movement, between darkness and light.
Marta Djourina
Marta Djourina‘s “Midnight Sun” project at the FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph Galerie brings together the synthesis and creation of mul;-layered dialogues between different media, techniques, spaces, object reality, light, statics and dynamics.
It is no coincidence that the current exhibition comes as a result of several other notable realizations in year 2023. It follows “Outer Glow” (Junge Kunst in Wolfsburg in June), combining video, photography and light installation, Ashes of Ice (European Capital of Culture Tartu, in August) with its impressive scale and comes also after Per EE TETRIS (Scope BLN in June) with the experiment on sculptural objects placed in an installation context.
Now all these very different approaches have been brought together to form the monolithic and homogeneous fabric of “Midnight Sun”. Such a refined understanding of synthesis creates the basis for the categorical monumentality of the exhibition concept. The artist takes to a new and much more complex level not only her researches on the images, but also on their perception, through a consciously created and deliberately manipulated spatial / lighting context.
“Midnight sun” is used as a synonym for “polar lights”, also known as “aurora borealis”. And if the magical lights around the north and south poles are the result of solar activity and the magnetic field, the specific magnetism in Djourina‘s works comes from her extensive work and experiments with light and related explosions of colors and forms
The works shown in the first part of the exhibition are part of her series „Filtergrams“ and very representative of the artist‘s manner of creation. They are a kind of „portals“ breaking through our real sense of space and deconstructing our concept of materiality, volume, accessibility or remoteness. A luscious outburst of color is subdued by dominant harmonies. The dynamic eruption of the form is refined, through stark lines and shape-forming visual elements. The magic of Djourina‘s works lies in the fact that, on the one hand, they resemble fragments of color oceans in which sapphire blue, velvet red or emerald green vibrate in their grada;ons and the light shades create multidimensionality and depth. On the other hand, they carry the suggestion of sculpturality, through the scale and the sense of monumental objectivity. Such „alchemy of emotion“ demonstrates that light is not just a photographic tool, but a language, a means of expression and of creating visual narratives.
Marta Djourina Untitled, 2023, direct exposure on analog photo paper 180 x 127 cm, unique
Moving on to the second part of the exhibition, we find another work, „Foxfire #02“, that gives us clarity about the artist‘s working principle. In her series, Marta Djourina does not simply aim to create „beautiful objects“. She is interested in the technology of beauty, the mechanisms of scientific or natural phenomena creating the curiosi;es of visual reality. And then the opposite – this same visual reality, as the engine of empirical research. Such an approach defines her work, the origin of which is the experiment with bioluminescent organisms (in this case, light-emiting mushrooms) and bringing them into the photo laboratory as an object of artistic research.
However, “Midnight Sun” gives us one more important insight into the work of Marta Djourina, capturing completely different lights that bring us closer to the practice of the active contemporary artist. These are the airport lights, the check-in scanners and the many sparkling signs that guide the logistics of a professional or personal life journey. Therefore, the artist creates her sculptural suitcases, turning them into monuments and the ultimate symbol of the nomadic nature of the artist. In her installation, entitled „Travel Lights“, the technology of photography necessarily requires the condition of travel, literally and metaphorically passing through multiple airports, conscious points of departure and subconscious points of return.
This line is metaphorically continued in the video work „Frame of Time“ shown in the same room. Light trails on photo strips are animated in a continuous, rhythmic movement, creating the choreography of permanent journeys, a constant movement and displacement to new places or to well-known memories, meeting points, points of meanings, points of surprise or points of collisions.
Marta Djourina skilfully and precisely conceptualizes the exhibi;on space through an organic interweaving and an active dialogue between photography, sculpture and film. Thus “Midnight Sun” offers us the chance to experience complexly and emotionally some of the best new works of the artist. Text: Boris Kostadinov
Text: Boris Kostadinov
Marta Djourina, born 1991 in Sofia, is a young, emerging artist who already won several awards and exhibits internationally. E.G. the Eberhard Roters Scholarship for Young Art 2020 donated by the Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung and presented at the Museum Berlinische Galerie, in 2021. The BAZA Award for Contemporary Art from the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia and the Edmond Demirdjian Foundation in cooperation with The Foundation for a Civil Society, New York and the YVAA – The Young Visual Artists Awards international network. In Fall 2022 the artist attended a three-month residency and working fellowship at the rooftop studio of the German Foreign Office in Berlin as part of the AArtist in Residence Program 2022 That same year she was also part of Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt Berlin. Currently she is a resident at Cité des Arts, Paris as part of the Artists Development Program (ADP)“ by EIB. Former grants include: Karl Hofer Project Grant (2017) and Karl Hofer Scholarship (2018), the IBB Prize for Photography (2016), etc..
Marta Djourina first completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Art and Image History and / Cultural Studies at HU Berlin (2012), followed by a Master’s degree in Art Science and Technology at TU Berlin (2014). She went on to study art at the UdK Berlin with professors Pia Fries, Gregory Cumins and Christine Streuli (graduated 2018) and spent an exchange semester at the Glasgow School of Art (2015).
She presented some of her previous solo and group exhibitions at FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph, Berlin (since 2020), at Kunstverein Junge Kunst Wolfsburg (2023), at Kommunale Galerie, Berlin Charlottenburg (2022), at Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art, Sofia (2021), at Mark Müller, Zurich (2021), Structura, Sofia (2021), 3:e Vaningen, Gothenburg (2020), Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2020), CAN Neuchatel (2019), Christine König, Vienna (2018), Künstlerhaus München, Munich (2018), Dorothea Konwiarz Stiftung, Berlin, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2017), LAGE EGAL (2018), DISPLAY Berlin (2017) a.o..
Marta Djourina’s works are part of the institutional collections of Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, DE, Investitionsbank Berlin, DE, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana, US as well as of numerous private collections.
Opening: Saturday, 18. November 2023, 6 pm
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 18. November 2023 until Saturday, 13. January 2023
To the gallery
Image caption: Marta Djourina acts in the darkroom
Exhibition Marta Djourina – FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art |Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
