“Poushosh” Collages are totally and fundamentally conceptual. For their creation is based on mere idea and concept. And technique and material are the secondary elements in them not the main. Some of the chosen material such as extracts from fashion journals would be ruined or forgotten if they weren’t used in these collections. But this collage revived them, reanimated them with a new life and function. Above all they have helped the artist and the artist has helped them.
“Poushosh” Collages are totally and fundamentally conceptual. For their creation is based on mere idea and concept. And technique and material are the secondary elements in them not the main. Some of the chosen material such as extracts from fashion journals would be ruined or forgotten if they weren’t used in these collections. But this collage revived them, reanimated them with a new life and function. Above all they have helped the artist and the artist has helped them.
description.
Each work is in a Locked box, I wrote the concept of the work on the cover. There are 2 keys in 2 different glasses, and just one of the key can open the box by the public. Each visitor hast just once this chance to try to open it and see what is inside. In one Glass is easy to get they key, in the thin one is impossible to get the key by fingers…if he/she can guess which key is the right one, and can get the key and open the lock, he/she can take the artwork by free. And if not, he/she should pay before he/she has a look on the artwork.
title. As if They Always Belonged To Each Other - Part 01
date. 1914-2011
Farshido Berta*
collage. interactive installation. performance
*Farshido in collaboration with Pohl Berta
concept.
Browsing flea markets and generally gathering knick-knacks of the past has always been an amusing hobby, which recently, it seems to have turned into an addiction. I gravitate toward and end up purchasing things that attract and interest me or pick my curiosity, not for collection purposes, but with an intention of using them eventually, somehow. I keep them in a special chest until such time my imagination grants me and them a new birth and a new purpose. I believe in the saying that the best ideas will come on the right time, with the right material and match up in a perfect outcome.
An artist, through his creative process, matches and brings together seemingly unrelated things and when he is done, the final product is a harmonious piece that seems as if the materials always belonged to each other and had never been apart.
In my endless rummaging of my beloved flea markets, I came across a few very simple sketches and paintings dating back to 1914 till 1917 by a young art student, Berta Pohl. The attention to detail, the delicacy with which the artist had signed her name for example, was eye catching to say the least, her works were in one word, so complete!. I think these sheets were her class exercises during the study in an art school in Olomouc, Czech Republic, before the first world war.
I personally guess they also migrated to Austria and I found these papers here in Vienna.
I was reminded of Persian Artist, Sohrab Sepehri, poet of 20th century, who had once written in spring of 1945, that no piece of art can be that complete/perfect that it can not be improved upon.
So with some hesitation, taking extreme care, realising what the original artist had accomplished, I went to work. I tried not to directly affect the paintings themselves and with the least amount of modifications, even by adding a small piece of paper; give birth to a new artistic work which may create even more meaning and deliver the message more loudly. For this, I opted for a collage. Through this method, I was able to keep the intrusion on the original works of art to a minimum.
The title “as if they always belonged to each other “ describes my relation with the first artist. The delicate procedure of our works implies that we have belonged to each other in our aesthetics.
The new piece will have also my name under her name , and this new piece is a mélange of me and pieces of history that I keep in my special chest of memories…
✒︎ Farshido
