2018.06.22 - 2018.07.31

Tuli Litvak

[UK]

Tuli is an artist based in London. One of the key concerns to her practice is the relation between the outside and the inside. Whether it’s the psyche, one’s surroundings or space in general, she examines the boundaries between them and how one affects the other.

More recently thinking of it in terms of screens; prisms through which we perceive the (digital) world. When she read the beginning of Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’, Tuli thought of shadows and forms as another variant to an inside/outside (in relation to the ‘Allegory of the Cave’). Her work explores the relationship between specific elements that constitute the art experience as a whole (following Juliane Rebentisch's writings) and the politics and hidden denominators that influence it. The object, space and location, as well as time, audience, and artist/collaborators are a few of those elements which come to form a work methodology that seeks to reflect upon the art practice itself.

Another key element vital to my practice is the question of authorship which is one of the reasons she strives to work with others at every stage of the way. I see my role as a facilitator of the art experience rather than its single author and intend to create art that captivates and creates an experience for both its constructors and viewers. To explore these relations critically, the work has three interlinked elements: sculptural (using readymades and materials inspired by the spaces she occupies, as well as wood and metalwork), performative (exploring how duration impacts the object in space - for her degree show, for example, Tuli collaborated with 30 dancers) and occasionally filmic (experimenting with editing to try and evoke in hindsight the essence of the direct experience of encountering the artwork or a meditative encounter with space).

Japanese architecture and the way space is divided also suggest unity, which collates with my mentioned interests above. For example, Tadao Ando, who sees inner feeling and space as inseparable, creates work in tandem with the landscape. I’m interested in how architecture that is influenced by these ideas, in turn, influences inner spaces of the mind and whether this translates to a different way the body moves within the space than what I’m familiar with from Europe. I'm also interested in exploring beauty and healing traditional and contemporary practices as well as ideals in Japan, that too, similarly to the architectural approach seem to be about exposing and caring for the skin rather than focussing on ways of covering and concealing it (e.g. via makeup) which seems more dominant in the west, and how this links to an idea of transparency=beauty=efficiency also present in the architecture. I’ll also explore how these past and future practices collocate with technology- the mechanising of the body and the way it affects our movements hand in hand with the humanisation of technologies.

Date 2018.06.22 - 2018.07.31
Place AIR-2
Website https://www.tulilitvak.co.uk/
Website https://www.instagram.com/london_tokyo_y_air/