Exhibition curators: Tomaž Brejc, Irena Čerčnik, Jiři Kočica, Polona Tratnik Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje, 22.9.–13. 11. 2011 Mirko Bratuša, Polona Demšar, Boštjan Drinovec, Jiři Kočica, Anja Kranjc, Gregor Kregar, Boštjan Novak, Nika Oblak & Primož Novak, Katja Oblak, ...
Exhibition curators: Tomaž Brejc, Irena Čerčnik, Jiři Kočica, Polona Tratnik
Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje, 22.9.–13. 11. 2011
Mirko Bratuša, Polona Demšar, Boštjan Drinovec, Jiři Kočica, Anja Kranjc, Gregor Kregar, Boštjan Novak, Nika Oblak & Primož Novak, Katja Oblak, Žiga Okorn, Zoran Srdić Janežič, Lujo Vodopivec, The Waiting Project (authors Katja Bogataj, Polona Černe, Pavel Ekrias, Neža Jurman, Ana Kerin, Miha Makovec, Barbara Pintar and Lan Seušek)
Simon Macuh as a living sculpture is part of the Barbarian installation in the garden of Luj Vodopivec. You can see the installation with Macuh at the opening and every Wednesday and Sunday between 5 and 6 p.m.
We kindly invite you to the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, September 22 at 7 p.m. in the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Celje.
The multi-year project SCULPTURE TODAY is a broad-based and transparent study of sculptural activity in Slovenia, which began with an exhibition and publication last year and will continue in installments until 2013. If last year's project titled Sculpture Today. Components, Junctions and Intersections with the works of thirty-two artists presented contemporary sculpture as an expanded field that goes beyond the definition of the media and enters the field of social, scientific, technological and interdisciplinary. . With the works of twenty-one artists, the gallery space is transformed into a space inhabited by 'the people': a multitude of statues, figures and bodies, mainly life-size fully plastic human figures, relating to various personal, social and political contexts. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, in which the questions raised by this exhibition are discussed in detail in the introductory texts by Tomaž Brejc and Jiri Kočica, the exhibition concept itself is defined by Brejc in the following words:
So imagine an exhibition of bodies, statues, figures, phantasms, fragments, fictions. In any room I enter, figures that look more or less human-like, either (1) that they really originate from them (Zoran Srdič, Anja Kranjc, Gregor Kregar, Polona Demšar), are staring from everywhere - or they don't seem to notice me; are there (2) apparent similarities, different size, small, material, color, light, heavy, but narrative "allegorical" statues (Mirko Bratuša, Boštjan Drinovec, Lujo Vodopivec, Boštjan Novak); (3) only rough bodies, refined remnants of some fleeting movements, postures (Katja Oblak), (4) and embryonic cocoons, tortured existential bodies (Anja Kranjc), (5) visual games, with fun haptic effects, real hits (Primož Novak , Nika Oblak), (6) bearers of subjective and social, optical and haptic dialogue (Jiři Kočica, Žiga Okorn). In all their diversity, they are permeated by a common creative intention to place the haptic experience of the body in a common field of representation, to entangle sculptures and viewers in mutual contact.
That is why the exhibition is permeated by a sense of closeness, touch, a kind of inclination (horror vacui). However, it is not about postmodern mannerism, about the callous display of existential fragility, about experimental design or the presentation of raw power when large and heavy statues are in front of us. It is a special reciprocity, a mutual engagement between the statue and the viewer, between the sculptor's body and the viewer's body. As if you don't need perspective, architectural space and distance to view, but sculptural bodies, figures, fragments are what determine when and what space is. In the words of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, space is what creates the body around it, not that space is first (a cognitive assumption) and only then does the body enter it. The individual rooms of the gallery are not just "white cubes", empty volumes, but special homes, environments where the statues have settled. Such a friendly coexistence turns the gallery space into the direct domestication of the studio, where the statues continue to live their lives and the viewer must also adapt to their varied existence.
YOU ARE INVITED!
CELEIA – CENTER OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS
Contemporary Art Gallery, Trg Celjske knezov 8, 3000 Celje
Tel.: 03 / 42 65 156
Open:
Tue – Fri 11.00 – 18.00,
Sat 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.,
Sun 14:00 – 18:00,
Monday closed
