Peter Lipkovič

PETER LIPKOVIČ was involved in the establishment of the C+S art collective even in its “antediluvian” phase. He first came to prominence in the late 1980s as the organiser of numerous alternative happenings on the unofficial Košice art scene (for example, the unsanctioned art exhibition held at his apartment, 1987; communal art studios; Prešparty, Prešov, 1988; and Neon I, Košice, 1989); an undertaking which required considerable courage in those years. In the 1990s he was a founding member of the C+S art collective, and he still serves as its head. His work has been exhibited both in Slovakia and abroad, and his unmistakable artistic language ranks him among the foremost artists of the Slovak art scene.

The featured works by Peter Lipkovič work on two levels. In “WHERE THE SAND FLOWS 01123…”, (video-installation, object, photography; 2015) he harks back to his past. In this dazzling work in the form of a Fibonacci sequence (a series of numbers in which each is the sum of the two preceding numbers) evokes the circular processes and sequences which play out in the family; an eternal symbiosis of relationships in which members leave, only to be replaced by the newly born. In this multifaceted video, virtual sand/time pours down onto a solid family table – a never-ending hourglass.

In his recent work, Lipkovič has entered into the space of the garden, a place where he now spends much of his time and which gives him a sense of the symbiosis of life – an immersion in nature, tranquillity, observation and time for meditation. With the fragile work titled GARDEN OF LANGUID DREAMS from the Continuous Layer cycle, as the artist states, “I had been working at varying degrees of intensity for several years. It is primarily a coincidence when I transpose an old piece of metal wire into another dimension just by adding pigment to it. My aim is to express these invisible relationships and contexts… Even an old man can dream.” The art of recycling (junk art or upcycled art) is a common aspect of his work, enabling rough, rusty, worn-out and discarded materials to take on vibrant, pure, elegant forms. He is content to work with “cheap” materials such as cardboard or metal sheets, but these are always used in combination with his signature colour, Klein Blue. This paint holds a deep symbolic value for Lipkovič, emanating an air of goodness, peace and tranquillity… In the work BLUE SHIFT, specially created for this exhibition, he shows the contact between two entities (two corroded sheets), the horizontal meeting the vertical: “The relationship between the entities is indicated with a patch of blue pigment lacking any specific qualities (it is neither good nor bad). I see this symbiosis more as cooperation than as parasitism, possibly because of the blue colour”. Abstraction cut to the bone, and a typically laconic commentary from the artist himself. And thus, we too can detect the sheer depth of feeling, the reflection of time, the garden at the end of the world.

The work of Peter Lipkovič can be perceived as a wordless dialogue between artist and material in which we experience an encounter between past and present; between coincidence and the deliberate gesture; between intuition and analytical understandings of form, His work offers a glimpse into the mind of an artist whose long artistic life has always been grounded in a creative playfulness, depth and the ability to dream – even in a time in which many dreams have crumbled under the pressure of rationality. He imbues his objects with a dimension of contemplation, peace and invisible connections which expand the framework of visual perception and position them within a space of philosophical interpretation.

Edita Vološčuková, project curator