12/12/2018 Severine Grosjean
Igor Josifov’s work does more than transgress borders and disrupt categories. As the new generation of independent artists working in Central and eastern Europe and outside state-funded institutions, Josifov’s conceptual approach blurs the boundaries between the art of performance, theater and the visual arts. Igor Josifov discuss issues of identity.
After years of experience on all medias, he decided that the most important support was his body. The liberation of the body in his work has a metaphorical significance for the freedom of people in the contemporary world. Always reflective and theatrical, the performances of Igor Josifov raise our critical awareness of the alienation of the Balkans, while capturing the incomprehensible side and the irrational elements of cultural regeneration.
His performance in 2012, 2-Dimensional, is a work of social participation where the public does or completes the performance. In this installation, he removes part of the ground and places a Plexiglass instead of it. Lying under the glass, the public comes and must walk over him. Their reactions do the work. It’s an experience where reactions are usually self-projections of the audience, and they become really out of control. 2-Dimensional concerns the relationship between the artist and the viewer.
In each performance, Igor Josifov wants to achieve the effect of sculpture with his body and with the mental state to establish a dialogue with the people who have to face him.
With his sculptures of glass faces, Igor Josifov offers the viewer a curious experience, an impressive aesthetic success. He highlights the mystery, the force of suggestion, the singular beauty of a human face. They are also deformed faces, recreated, reinvented by the spirit and the hand of the artist. Here, each head touches us, stares at us, disarms us. Josifov’s universe is ours, but crossed by flashes that pierce the daily flatness of existence. Nothing less violent or heavily expressionist. The energy acting in his sculptures is even more marked because they are souls that he sculpts.
Josifov accomplishes the very act of transformation and liberation of the captive human mind and soul. In Taming Fire, he takes up the challenge and proceeds by making characters portraits with fire .
The photographs are therefore somehow contemporary icons. This project is a visual representation. Part of the enthusiasm of his work lies in the fact that Josifov can not predict the appearance of portraits. They are blurred. Fire is his companion, just as it has been since the beginning of human history. It is a source of energy. It is an emblem dotting our imagination and arousing various feelings. In a magical and creative gesture, Igor Josifov uses fire as a marking tool. The process is the performance. Igor creates works on curling paper with the legends of creation and destruction. The work of Igor Josifov is a source of fascination.
Partnership: The Nomad Creative Projects
