LPE: November 2, 2007
The various states of preservation of Skopje’s buildings and streets were attracting most of my attention after my arrival. In this city with its reach history and legacy of traditional Macedonian architecture and Ottoman buildings, as well as modernist architecture developed before and mostly after the 1963 earthquake, the issue of preservation and ongoing attention towards architectural structures seems to be ongoing and relevant. “Working the city” is a sculptural and performative work that is created with discarded building material found by the Macedonian Opera and Ballet piled up and left in front of the building after recent reconstructions.
Valentin Ruhry
Valentin Ruhry (1982, Austria) is an artist living in Vienna and Graz. He currently works on his degree dissertation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna where he studies `sculpture and multimedia´ in the class of Erwin Wurm. Ruhry also teaches "inter-media art" at the Ortweinschule, Graz. His art installations and artistic materials often deal with topics from everyday life, but treated in a humorous manner. Another area of his artistic research is the parametric tilting of objects within their functional and aesthetic axis. In 2004 Valentin was on scholarship at the Royal School of Art and Design in Oslo, Norway, and was nominated for the Steirischer Landeskunstpreis in 2006.
Ruhry is in Skopje as a visiting artist in the exchange artist residency program established between Art Association <rotor> from Graz and press to exit project space. The program is supported by the Embassy of Austria in Skopje and Austrian Airlines.
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