Ariel Schlesinger: Elvira

Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to present Elvira, Ariel Schlesinger’s (b. 1980) fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Before going to art school, Israeli artist Ariel Schlesinger was taught carpentry, in California, by a Japanese master carpenter, with whom he would, years later, work on the reconstruction of a partly destroyed temple, eventually installed at Schloss Solitude. Even though not directly related to the works now on show at Galerija Gregor Podnar, the story of the temple can help understand the poetics that rule Schlesinger’s oeuvre: its philosophy, so to say. Destruction, often symbolized by fire, plays a preeminent role in his practice, but it doesn’t annihilate, instead it points to the possibility of renewal, to a blossoming of new forces and, maybe, a new balance.