Nihilartikel
Izabela Pluta
Perimeter Editions
English
Softcover (with coptic binding)
First Edition of 700
128 pages
320 x 240 mm
2022
ISBN 9781922545107
The German term nihilartikel is used to describe the little known practice of inserting intentional errors, falsities or fictitious entries into reference texts – academic works, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, directories – for the purpose of later identifying plagiaries, copies or other infringements to intellectual copyright. Taking this somewhat elusive practice as its subtext, Izabela Pluta’s major new book approaches photography and its central quandaries of authenticity and representation from a series of unsettled and dynamic vantages.
Here, the Polish-born, Australian-based artist forges a syntax using photographs gleaned from aerial drone footage and moving-image stills filmed underwater in Malta and Japan, and traditional darkroom prints made with out-of-print and otherwise obscure oceanic maps. Ancient surfaces and architectures ripple with evidence of their deep time; boulders emerge, stealth-like, from the blue depths; cartography collapses in on itself; all in a sequence punctuated by vibrant interplays of colour, layer, texture and form.
Working in fluid collaboration with designers Paul Mylecharane and Kim Mumm Hansen, Pluta depicts the ocean and its surrounding landscapes as a fallible and contested space. Official accounts are called into question, and expanded photographic materialities, juxtapositions and graphic formalism work to fragment established systems of knowledge. Pluta’s conceptual pith lies in the exploration, repetitions, red herrings and residues. Nihilartikel – which follows the artist’s 2019 book for Perimeter Editions, Figures of slippage and oscillation – echoes the volatility and relationality of our experience of the ocean itself, posing the question of how we can work to unravel the dogmas of conventional modes of looking, making and reading photographs. Here, Pluta dares us to lose ourselves in the undertow.
(source: https://www.thelibraryproject.ie/collections/latest-arrivals/products/nihilartikel-izabela-pluta)
About the Artist
Izabela Pluta (b. 1979, Poland) migrated to Australia in 1987. She has an MFA from UNSW Art & Design, Sydney, and a PhD from The University of Wollongong, entitled Allegories of Diaspora: Gleaning the residues of spatial and temporal misalignments. She has exhibited widely throughout Australia, including at the Art Gallery of NSW, Artspace, the Australian Centre for Photography an UTS Gallery, Sydney; Queensland Centre for Photography, Brisbane; 24 HR Art, Darwin; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts; Canberra Contemporary Art Space; and the National Gallery of Victoria, West Space and Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne; among many others. In 2012, she was commissioned to create Unset Typologies, a public artwork for the City of Melbourne. In 2018, Pluta was shortlisted for the MAMA Foundation National Photographic Award. In 2019, Pluta was commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW to create a significant new work for The National 2019: new Australian art exhibition, and presented Reversal – a solo exhibition at The Glasshouse Regional Gallery in regional NSW. Pluta is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert and is a Senior Lecturer in photography at UNSW Art & Design, Sydney.
izabelapluta.net
(source https://perimetereditions.com/FIGURES-OF-SLIPPAGE-AND-OSCILLATION)
About the Publishers
Perimeter Editions is the award-winning publishing imprint of Melbourne-based bookstore Perimeter Books and distribution house Perimeter Distribution. Releasing its first publication in 2012, Perimeter Editions’ focus rests on publishing autonomous books in close collaboration with photographers, artists, curators and writers. Its publications exhibit a criticality and sensitivity to content and form.
perimetereditions.com
(source: https://perimetereditions.com/filter/Izabela-Pluta/About)
