Levitation No 51

The photo exhibition Levitation, on the other hand, stops time completely, even denies it. The moment is placed into the foreground as the only category worthy of our attention. The artist uses a 14-year-old ballerina who defies gravity and other laws of nature as his model. By doing so, he unintentionally, or perhaps intently, transports us into a different moment in time, around 1880, when Edgar Degas in his atelier sculpted his famous La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, the Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. Degas, with his numerous depictions of dancers, focused on what usually stays hidden from the audience (fatigue, distress of dancers). With this awareness, the levitation of today’s fourteen-year-old dancer becomes multi-facetted. Despite the fact that the artist alludes to a light-hearted acceptance of the moment, we cannot ignore the realisation that life is just an interlacement of moments. Landing on the floor is inevitable, however, in the next moment, an event, a positive thought or a friendly smile can lift us up again.

Rudi Uran,   Slovenia, Maribor