Chiara Valci Mazzara

Artists in Dialogue: Urs Lüthi and Mia Gourvitch

3 t(w)o 1

The numbers (from the origin 0) and 1 to 3 appear and recur throughout the multiplicity of the photographs, as well as – at a closer look – into the duplicity, the otherness, the exterior, the interior, the space between. They, in some way, anchor an idea to the ground, whence it forms the notion of the continuous flux of the time.

The prevailing sagacity expressed through the consideration of the present within the flux of time, the use of self-portraiture, the undisclosed intimacy and the sharpness which blinks to the irrationality of life in the photographs of both artists – perceived through different yet relatable angles – redeems our perception of the intelligible reality. The photographic works occupy a position at a boundary or threshold between presence and absence, between self-reflection and self-portraiture, between bodies as subjects of the discussion and as subjects removed from the frame, perceived even more as there. They capture a moment, where and when the viewer is enabled to grasp the difference of the “similar from the identical,of the metaphorical from the real.”*

Photography is – by nature – led by some urgency to isolate a time frame, or a glimpse, the matter, the shapes, the signifier, the signified: a body, an empty room, a nocturnal landscape; it depicts details, swifts from within the refraction of the images of the protagonists, narrates proximity or unravels around broader realms.**

The self-representation, the choice of the vessel – the body of the artist – through which the self-discernment and its implications are represented together with its characteristics, is the act that lies beneath the pieces of Urs Lüthi. Those elements generate a shift from the intimate to the public, the personal to the universal, they suggest an alternate poignant reality. The signifier being steady, the perspective challenged.

Figuratively, in the space between the photographs and the numbers 1, 2, 3 – respectively: “the lonely”, “the better”, “the way to go on with” as in One Is a Lonely Number (Lüthi, 1973) – Lüthi intertwines a parallel echoing between the self and the whole. Moves around the duality of perception and depiction. Suggests a path, bends the representations of the self-references. The external world is enclosed and reflected by his own image: by the multiplication of it. The refraction of the images develops into the sea beneath, from the body to the surrounding. Where words and numbers float still. Where questions are posed in the form of statements or the facts hint a much wider discussion.

The multiple images of Self-portrait in Six Pieces – the double of 3 – are a movement from inside out, from the inner realm to the repetition of different images; it is a context which revolves around the series of portrayals of the artist in various poses, making faces, with a black stripe on the eyes, isolating the body, acting on the face as only the eyes of the viewer would have a view, the subject/s of the photographs do not stare back to the public or wear(s) sunglasses. The artist draws the attention to the postures, bending his body/ies on the map of the photographs. He creates a sub-spatial space, in a sub-timing time where the inner selves are suggested to be next to the outer perceivable self-awareness we have, of what surround us,of the gestures we observe the artist is engaging with.

In the 2 single self-portraits of Lüthi, there’s the duality of the self – pictured widely differently – through a choice so brutally honest hence neither fragmented nor polished. It is him: 1, as the bust and as the protagonist of his photograph with flies invading the frame. It is life, outlines of his face, with insects polluting and populating the image. There’s irony and reality as well, in Self-portrait (Brachland/Wasteland) (Lüthi 2016) and there’s sharpness and realism in Self-portrait from the series Universal Order (Lüthi, 1991) as if life – “the better one of the artist” (sic Lüthi) – would be too short to be taken too seriously, to bow to the unoriginality of the mere phenomena. Through Lüthi’s irony, his self-irony, we are confronted with questions about life, its representation as a comprehensive experience charged with provocative aesthetics and humorous, melancholic and narrative inputs: “man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is,” Lüthi suggests a frame in which “there’s life and death, and there are beauty and melancholy between.”***

The sense of the otherness and the space between two bodies are also there, witnessing the encounter, the intimacy,the playfulness (The Sun Shines also in America and Self-portrait with Uli, Lüthi, 1977 and 1980, respectively). Here we get a glimpse on the life of the artist, his relationships, the quiet disorder of the human intimacy, the softness and the vulnerability of the interactions, the private dimension, undisclosed through the shutter. The 1 Sun, that Shines also in America (Lüthi, 1977), gives the title to a piece where 2 bodies complete 1 movement towards the ceiling – moving as one – and 2 pairs of eyes are looking at the camera. The 2 self-portraits with Uli picture 1 movement towards each other, closing up on the life as being in the moment.