Nearly Weightless
With his full strength, a man is leaning against a skewed telephone-pole to keep it from falling, to save other people from the standstill of communication: a snapshot of nearly chaplinesque grace and at the same time a source of inspiration. So far, Mitzev´s projects "for public spaces" have been visualized mostly as photomontages – ideas, not yet reality. They all stand out for this special grace and simplicity. Without a warning, a plain street-post of medium height suddenly starts to move, surprising people with the unexpected manifestation of the individual life of an everyday object. The lid of an air shaft from Sofia, antique-looking and rust-stained, lands in a public place in Munich like a foreign dinosaur – naturally scuptural in its new surrounding, but irritating and deprived of function. Also the skewed pole returnes: changed into a tilted, but miraculously balanced telephone-box which makes us stop short and look twice. The tilted box is fascinating; not only by its seeming weightlessness, but also by its use: unlike a normal telephone box, it allows communication for free. The same applies to the table which overcomes borders; neatly split in two and installed half inside, half outside a building, it ignores the dividing glass wall: communication is feasible after all?
Common "reality" is delicately displaced; barely noticeable at first, then even more striking. A trace of humour shines through, a tender deportment, a calling into question of the often rude and indifferent behaviour of people in public spaces which these minimal interventions all of a sudden show in a new light. Mitzev´s suggestions perplex us and make us think: they bring into focus our everyday life, our perception, our non-communication caused by surfeit or by the unwillingness to notice and value the detail. But for all the conclusiveness and critical outlook of Mitzev´s interventions, there is always this other aspect of his works: they are spellbinding in their impressive weightlessness and poetry.
Susanne Baumgart (Translation: Christine Wunnicke)
