Tobias Putrih

An urge to map the rift between concrete, built environments and their digital production tools, interfaces, or simulations forms the core of Tobias Putrih’s art practice. It invites the viewer to reevaluate the spaces and objects defined by the utopian and visionary concepts of architecture and design, examining public venues—cinemas, libraries, galleries, and a university commons, and their transformation in the face of industrial optimization and reimagining them through their opposite—hands-on model making and experimental fabrication.

Many of Putrih’s projects are collaborative, conceived in conversation with architects, filmmakers, designers, scientists, and computer programmers. The artworks become proposals or purely conceptual models. Temporary environments and objects are constructed from fugitive materials such as cardboard or paper or through precise handling of manufactured materials like Styrofoam and plywood.

Putrih’s work was presented with solo shows at museums worldwide—Museum Boijmans Van Beunigen, Rotterdam; Fondazione Prada, Milan; MIT List Center, Cambridge, Kunsthaus Zurich, and Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, Centre Pompidou, Paris and Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana. The most important group exhibitions he participated in include TRACK, Smak, Ghent, Forms of Resistance, VanAbbe Museum, Eindhoven, Manifesta 4, Frankfurt, and the 29th Sao Paulo Biennale. In 2007, he represented Slovenia at the Venice Biennale. The major published works include three monographs—in 2007, published by JPRingier; in 2012, by Haus Konstruktiv; and in 2022, by HatjeCantz.

His work is included, among others, in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’ Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Museum Boijmans Van Beunigen, Rotterdam and Sprengel Museum, Hannover.