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Yours, KOW

Golden, 2018

Photography

In the new series ‚Golden' Tobias Zielony continues his work on the queer and underground community in post-soviet societies in the capital of Latvia, Riga. The moment of social and political transformation is reflected on the ritualistic changes to the protagonists body and the surface of the city itself. Excluded from institutionalized representations of normative subjectivity, Zielony's young protagonists are using fashion, piercing, tattooes, and graffitti in order to rewrite intimate and common identities. The rituals of public disobedience are simultanously undermining and re-enforcing the boundaries of an increasingly hedonistic and neoliberal society.

Tobias Zielony, Ink, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Virtuve, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Rigonda, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Angel, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Camera, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Arturs, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Wood, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Gabriel, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Kriksis, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Jackets, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Autentika, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 46 x 69 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Rise, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Hair, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Fire, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Andrejsala, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Oriole, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Daniels, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony, Eliass, 2018, from the series 'Golden', archival pigment print, 46 x 69 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP

Archival pigment prints, 69 x 46 cm, Ed. 6 + 2AP

Tobias Zielony

Tobias Zielony is known for his photographic depictions of young people living on the fringes of affluent societies and social acceptance. For the past 20 years, Zielony has focused on suburban milieus that, from Canada to England, Ukraine, Israel, and Japan, have in common that they have fallen out of the promises of modernity's progress and are establishing a temporary life in their own cultural niches. What goes hand in hand with melancholy at the same time reveals a great human tenderness in the cohesion of precarious communities, which Zielony approaches and gives the space to stage themselves. In the process, Zielony's critical approach to documentary manifests itself in a specific aesthetic and relationship to fiction. His numerous institutional exhibitions include the German Pavilion in Venice 2015. Tobias Zielony is a professor in Hamburg since 2022.

Zielony´s work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions recently such as Watching TV in Narva (KOW Berlin 2023), Dark Data (Marta Herford 2022) and Touch. Politiken der Berührung (EMOP Berlin, c/o Amtsalon 2023), Nach August Sander Menschen des 21. Jahrhunderts (Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen 2022).



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