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RUDI NINOV

Los 10: UNTITLED (AFTER HERRIMAN‘S COCONINO COUNTY 1920), 2020, Keramik, ca. 180 x 56 x 51 cm

UNTITLED (AFTER HERRIMAN‘S COCONINO COUNTY 1920)

2020, Keramik, ca. 180 x 56 x 51 cm

Drei Fragen an ...

RUDI NINOV

What is your inspiration? Are there certain films (genres) or literature that particularly inspire you?

  • I find examples of early animation cinema fascinating in the way they contributed the qualities of stillness, duration and movement to an otherwise two dimensional drawing. In the way they broke the limits of the figure, either in the image of human or animal, and literary imbued these figures with otherworldly life qualities. For example, the moment the fire comes to life in the ‘Flame and the moth’, and early Disney animation from 1938. The way they have portrait both the almost hypnotic lure when staring at an open fire and also its destructive force, all in the image of a little candle flame. Another example would be in ‘Steamboat Willie’ also Disney production from 1928. The vitality in the black drawing line I find powerful, as the source of creation. It swings, stretches, it’s in constant recycle. Music I find very inspiring and music is always playing while I’m in the studio. I really enjoy most of the new modal jazz that was happening in the 50s and 60s in the States. Artists that are often in rotation on my playlist are Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, to name a few. I recently started reading the book Genesis Of A Music by Harry Partch. I really find his music fascinating, he was very experimental in the way he assimilated sounds from different cultures and the fact that he composed most of the musical instruments himself.

You once said “I am a painter who also happens to make sculptures.“ What you mean with this statement and what is the difference between painting and sculpture for you?

  • Hmm…that’s a funny one! This sentence was more of a ‘slip of the tongue’ moment when I was describing to someone how I arrived to making three dimensional objects in the first place. I picked up painting early in my childhood after my parents migrated to the UK. I guess it was the language barrier and moving from a small town to London that made me start something as solitary as painting. It was only when I enrolled in my first art school that I began making small three dimensional things that were more of sketches than anything else. I would then take them as starting points to many of the paintings at the time. I would look at them and re draw them on the canvas. Eventually, from hiding them in the corner of the studio as mock ups and tools for the paintings, I realised that these things are as important to my practice as the paintings are…it took a while for that realisation. The first time I showed a piece which wasn’t a painting was in 2014. It was this larger than human scale, tree-like sculpture for which I literary wrapped around a canvas painted pink on a wooden support and left it in the middle of the room… I will include a photo of it, it’s kind of funny and makes me happy looking at it now. I titled it The Pink Phink after the first episode of the Pink Panther series from early 60s, which in short is a fight for dominance between the colour blue and pink.

Can you briefly describe your process of creating the ceramics?

  • I would have an idea that usually comes from a previously finished sculpture or painting, an interesting moment in a work which I would like to take forward into the next work. But I would only continue with this idea/feeling and not make any sketches. I actually don't make preliminary sketches for anything I do. I leave all the decision making in the creative act. I want to give enough room for the unplanned and the accidents to happen, which I find sketches stop me from doing. The fact that most of the larger ceramic pieces all start from the bottom up. Thinking of the base and the first few decisions that take place in that space and how they influence the rest of the piece.
Rudi Ninov

Der Künstler

*1992 in Teteven, Bulgarien lebt und arbeitet in Frankfurt am Main. Der in Bulgarien geborene Künstler studierte zwischen 2012 und 2015 an der Goldsmiths University of London und ist seit 2018 an der Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main in der Klasse von Amy Sillman, Monika Baer und Nikolas Gambaroff. Ninovs Werke wurden seit 2015 in verschiedenen nationalen und internationalen Einzel- und Gruppenausstellungen gezeigt, u.a. bei der Liste Art Fair Basel, der Ginsberg Galeria in Lima, der Galleria Continua in Italien und bei Sotheby‘s Frankfurt in Deutschland.

Seine Werke

Rudi Ninov vereint die Malerei auf einzigartige Weise mit seinen Skulpturen und erforscht dabei besondere Momente, die er mit schon vollendeten Werken verbindet. Er interessiert sich für den skulpturalen Raum und setzt sowohl in seinen Gemälden als auch in seinen Keramiken kraftvolle Farben ein, die seine Auseinandersetzung mit visuellen Prozessen dokumentieren. Seine abstrakten Keramikskulpturen sind wie seine Gemälde geprägt von der Inspiration, die er aus Literatur und Film zieht. Abb. Untitled (chance opus), 2020, ceramics and acrylic, 65x43x11cm

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Untitled (instant crush at the bonus signal), 2019, ceramic, wood, 179x60x60cm

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Untitled (half instruments, Partch in epilogue), 2021, acrylic on canvas, 168 x 234 cm

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The Pink Phink, canvas on wood, 220 x 100 cm, 2014