An Artist Talks, Petrov Ahner, Finissage" Burned Condition",04.11.2010, Tacheles

This new experience of solo show as art photographer here  in the Tacheles neue Gallery, was a great moment and Petrov Ahner is pleased that so many people have been able to see his works.

The Photographs were taken  after the destruction of the gallery in last february, Petrov took pictures of left over trash burnt objects and gave them a new life a new function.

This exhibiton states and shows how resistent a place like the Tacheles Arthouse can be. "We create art from destruction, we recreate from nothing" says Petrov.

The long fight the Tacheles arthouse  is experiencing at the moment, inspires artists to create and involve themselves into new directions.

Petrov has started to work with a young Mexican artist named Alain Lederzman, Orvar, who is 26 years old and has been showing his work currently in the "Sine Die" project room.

Both exhibitons are curated by the house curator Barbara Fragogna, with whom the artist has built a strong relationship.

Many recent projects have been initiated by her and have devellop thanks to her coaching and encouragements.

Petrov has also been collaborating with performance artist Miriam Wuttke and describes these new aspects of his works as "very exciting and new". His experience from the past of course, is a ground for his research, but he  is constantly trying to obtain a new vision of the portrait, or of the performance, and helps  photography  begin it's artistic function, and not only be a documentation of someone else's work, or performance. The photography itself becomes  an artwork.

He is preparing his next exhibition a series of portraits done in France of the illegal immigrants, who joined to fight for their right to stay and work in France. We were lucky to see a preview projection of beautiful individuals dignified by his camera. The status of the immigrant is viewed from a different angle and Petrov intentionaly took these portraits to make these immigrants shine and show their humanity. The portrait has always had a social function in our society, people of power and high social classes have had portraits done by famous artists, painters and photographers.

Here Petrov stands by a social group that is look down upon and helps the viewer become aware of a contemporary social situation.