Ljubodrag Andric

From 22/02/2018 To 09/04/2018

Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea is pleased to present INVISIBLE SPACES, a Ljubodrag Andric solo show.
Ljubodrag Andric was born in Serbia and has been living in Canada for the past 15 years. This exhibition marks his return to Italy, after two years of absence. In 2017 his work has been exhibited at the Musée des beaux-arts in Le Locle, Switzerland in a solo exhibition paired therewith exhibitions of Sol LeWitt and Anni Albers under the common theme of Abstraction. This corpus of unpublished large-format photographs, where every temporal symmetry is denied, is exposed as a sequence of variations on a theme. They take the viewer through abstract spaces, made of light and color alone that however, as in a fresco, refer to tactile sensations that emphasize the image’s material, textural qualities. Always characterized by the absence of the human figure, Ljubodrag Andric’s photographs are an exercise in style that, while rooted in early Italian Renaissance and in the art of Piero della Francesca and Beato Angelico, eventually evolved into a synthesis of abstract-geometric kind in which the only possible subject is time – or rather the imprint of time in architectural spaces achieved through skilful use of light. The formal dimension, played out here entirely on symmetries (intended as balance), is for the artist only a starting point. The "search for the ideal light" is the principle underlying each of his works and neutralizes any possible narration related to the place and time when the photograph is taken. Like the list of an archive, each image is titled only by the city and the year in which it was made, thus defining spatial and temporal coordinates but, through a unique abstract vision that the artist has built in his mind for that place, the concepts of time and space take on other meanings.n This work is therefore made of waiting, as, by a craftsman of the image, that does not start from the fascination for a given subject, as most photographers do, but builds the image through an intuitive process that ends when a deep intrinsic equilibrium is reached, then immediately accessible to the observer. As Barry Schwabsky states in the critical text about Andric’s work Images in time, the artistic research of Ljubodrag Andric "is an experience based on duration. It is not a flash, a fleeting appearance, a shock. The image makes us slow down, it educates us to a quiet receptivity. It is not something to look at: every gaze here is unarmed. Rather than penetrating it, we want to be with the image, next to it. "Using a completely matt and extremely smooth paper, physical support disappears and the skillful use of light tends to produce an experience total immersion in the work that is both material and intangible, almost too real to be true. What Ljubodrag Andric brings to life is a hyper place that (in contrast to the non- places of Marc Augé characterized by the lack of identity, relationships and history) takes on an almost sacred dimension, a point of perfect equilibrium, a magic hour that makes us sense to be exactly in the right place at the right time.