Nils NovaWorks so far

Anyone who has gazed long enough into the white-hot centre of this yellow picture will scorch right through the slats of the deckchair. This small visual joke opening the first truly comprehensive monographic publication on Nils Nova’s work to date acts like an appetiser and is able to draw viewers even deeper into that work. Just as Nils Nova did in 2009, when he was invited to take part in the Venice Biennale: he first photographed the empty exhibition space in the Artiglieri dell’ Arsenale lengthwise in reverse angles and then set the opposing end walls, captured frontally, back into the previously photographed space as a photographic installation. It is not only the imposing dimensions, writes Max Wechsler in his outstanding and illuminating essay, that unhinge the imagination when the montage of photographic “mirror images” causes real space, in its extreme dissolution of boundaries, to set one’s own standpoint and viewpoint wavering; rather, this dissolution of boundaries, a vacillating experience of appearance and being, continues still further when a real picture suddenly hangs on the white wall inside the photographed space, seeming to float freely against the photographic background. What is more, the picture painted on chromium steel acts like a real mirror at its polished centre. Viewers see themselves and their surroundings projected into the picture and thus involuntarily become part of their own perception, which is already close to despair on account of the floating planes. Nils Nova is an artist who, working with painting, photography, video and found footage, intelligently stages the tendencies towards enchantment and mystification inherent in the nature of his diverse material. It therefore comes as no surprise that simulacra and parallel worlds come into play, and that one need not necessarily ponder Peter Schlemihl’s shadow or other sold souls in order to be seized by a slight dizziness.

Exhibitions:
Photoforum PasquArt, Biel/Bienne, 19/06–21/08/2011
Kunstverein Heilbronn, 24/3–6/5/2012