black and light

BLACKANDLIGHT_Marko Horban

Even though Marko Horban's native material is photography, his work up to now balances on overlaps with other media. Marko's works are characterized by light irony, dallying with the perception and uncertainty of the viewer, self-portrait, or reinterpretation and appropriation. The exhibition presents several planes of reflection on light that is our dominant source of not only the visible world, but also of inner awareness. Marko is like a reconnaissance dron flying over the edge of the visible world, in which the real and virtual enlightenment is confronted. Reinterpretation and appropriation are probably thievery but also a necessary tool of artist's strategy with consequences, which want and need to exist. The sources are real; they are displaced memories and the identity of the author is irrelevant. Levels of understanding the exhibition lie in Marko's riddles, in source material and in banal game, which aim is to insecure viewer's experience.

TRANSFER /2015/
The impulse for nine black and white photographs was to revitalize virtual (bit) light through optical and photochemical processes. Marko collected multicolor, bright magical and cheap PC backgrounds with the key title light (svetlo) and transferring them to the light-sensitive material he gave them new (better) life. He upgrades them to artifact but he wants to make uncertain the connection between the bit and semantic world.

LIGHTBOX /2014/
These seven objects (images) are dallying with the interpretation of the viewer. At first glance the box illustrates various sources of artificial light that the viewer can decode as structures, patterns or archetypes. However picture of the bulb Marko understands as an initial moment of awareness of his own life time period. It is possible that our light will not go out long after its warranty has expired? Is it verifiable that it will continue to shine even after it will be cut off from the source?

SUNTIMES /2015/
Technical photography of the Sun provides a fascinating insight into a large eye that gives and takes all life on the Earth. Marko took a photo of his close relatives in the dramatic sequence and thus asks the eye whether it does have an answer to sadness it doesn't feel and the joy, which it does not enjoy. Daily picture of the Sun, the shining star, will be once a code which can be decrypted and we will receive answers. Until then, however, they have to serve only as commemorating scrolls at the family fireplace.

½ FACE /2015/
Do you know how your (not) favorite author does look like? Will you recognize the fine artist – whose work you admire or hate – on the street? While the faces of actors, singers, and politicians are unexcitingly known to us, only few people have an idea how do look like contemporary Slovak artists. Although Marko is not considered as a representative of the Slovak art community, he subjected his photographic half-portrait to children's imagination. It doesn't matter how do you look like; if you were good, you would be surely recognized and identified.

PEDOGRAPHER /2015/
At the beginning it was a harmless holiday photo depicting a boy in a sailor cap with a ball. A seemingly innocent scene is changing at the moment of realizing that the picture was taken during a summer holiday, but you do not know exactly where. Its author is unknown beach photographer and you have only one copy at home. Your brain is starting to think, speculate and project repulsive scenarios about the future life of your portrait. At the time of its creation the photography from the summer holiday was something special. Maybe it was the only picture of the boy on the hot beach. What if ...

Alexandra Niczová and Marko Horban