This solo exhibition of Erik Binder is a continuation of projects of middle-generation artists made for the SNG. Robustness of his oeuvre and at the same time the lightness of his creative approach enable us to present him as a creator within his own environment, within the labyrinth of his own life, where he is trying to orientate.
He built his artistic programme on the inversion of creative process some time ago. Binder's programme is multi-layered and contains work with all media - from painting, to graphics, autonomous and diary drawings, installations and objects, to video and intermedia performances.
LGS: The automatic image of a labyrinth is a 2-dimensional pattern on the floor of a French cathedral. In the "labyrinth of spending time" we think of the exhibition premises as a 3-dimensional labyrinth which is somehow organic and inorganic at the same time.
EB: In my work, I have dealt a lot with symbols and realised that many of them are actually diagrams depicting 3-dimensional things and that they have an analogy in life. This is how I imagined the Kabbalah tree of life and various things that exist also in space. Some are so paradoxical that they cannot be depicted. I like a 3-dimensional labyrinth because it enables a person to go higher and lower too, it is about walking and seeing, but also about climbing and descending.
LGS: What do cracks in glass that represent the intro and the core of the exhibition have to do with the labyrinth? Are they its threads?
EB: Yes, it is basically about imitation of this effect. But these objects stem from my aesthetics of ruins, as you called it two years ago. Ruins and transformation of ruins relate to this exhibition as well.
The project is highly autobiographical and reacts specifically to the current social situation, too. Erik Binder belongs to artists who have long realised that materialism is hopelessly insufficient and who try to see the other side of things as well and look for their broader meanings. Tendencies to return to spirituality of art are becoming increasingly visible also in the global art world and correspond to the times of crisis and tension.