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18/12/2013

Only to melt, trustingly, without reproach

Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana

Bani Abidi, Bas Jan Ader, Esad Babačić, FORT, Hreinn Fridfinsson, Lasse Schmidt Hansen, David Horvitz, Željko Jerman, Jacek Kryszkowski, Lee Lozano, Jerzy Ludwiński, Ruth Oppenheim, Agnieszka Piksa, Camila Rocha, Julika Rudelius, Ariel Schlesinger, Ulay, Marko Tadić .

Curators: Magdalena Ziółkowska, Tevž Logar

The final Gallery Škuc exhibition of 2013 is also the final presentation under the current artistic programming. Incorporating the idea of the literary palimpsest, the exhibition aligns historical and contemporary artistic practices in an attempt to produce a choreography of the past, present and future in which emotions and intuitions play prominent roles. The need for perspectives that are both close and distanced formed the basis for the curatorial collaboration, while the exhibition's substantive content is grounded in specific projects realised in Škuc Gallery in recent years. However, the institution's history is not understood as geology waiting to be excavated, but rather as a collection of incidents interpreted through unstable and constantly shifting memories, which are in turn subject to the curators’ own recent experiences. The exhibition thus unfolds as a multi-referential plot that stresses the incomplete recall of miscellaneous objects, stories, events and accidents as they appear in both the artistic imagination and the institution’s history. The fact that Gallery Škuc is a gallery, former cultural centre and an office allows the notion of this history to be understood more broadly than a formal history of exhibitions. The show becomes an account of a moment in time seen through the lens of the present, where history is recontextualised and placed in relation to new elements seen for the first time.

In this conjuring of trustfulness through the recognition of the small gesture lies the thread that ties the exhibition’s artistic elements together and gives a clue to the approach that might be most appropriate for a viewer walking in from the street. Anna Akhmatova (the title of the show comes from one of her Untitled poems) suggests dropping one’s guard against the intrusion of another, even into the most intimate creative moments (“Having run out of paper, / I am writing on your rough draft / And a word which is not mine / Occasionally shows through / only to melt, trustingly, without reproach / As snowflakes, once, on my hand”). For these moments might shake free a fresh insight that would be impossible to generate alone, or to stimulate the recollection of a memory that had lain dormant until now. It is with the hope that combining personal reverie with the close presence of others (and the weight of the world) that the exhibition is brought together – as a chance to reflect on past and presence, old and new.

The vicissitudes of life are reflected in the artistic works. Many pieces refer directly to the artists' biographies or hint at emotional upheavals. Perhaps in this way they counter the current tendency to see contemporary art in terms of its utilitarian value rather than its ability to speak to experiences that touch deeper levels of sensitivity than simple political or economic return. For most of the invited artists it is relevant to see the artworks as implying a state of mind with which any individual can identify – a feeling of freedom, pain, thoughtfulness, love, death or intimacy that reflects our being in the world at levels that are not so easily articulated by means other than art.

Interest in the potential of the personal gesture is the key to understanding the presence of two historical practices – Lee Lozano's strikes and rejection pieces from the late 1960's and Art Auction by Jacek Kryszkowski from the mid-1980's. These take their place alongside works by Bas Jan Ader, Ulay and Željko Jerman, all of whom had individual exhibitions in recent years at Škuc Gallery and which all relate in diverse ways to the notion of departure and disappearance. In contrast to the immanent presence of the heterogeneous group of people filmed by Julika Rudelius in an anonymous room, the main protagonist of Ruth Oppenheim's video builds up a fantasy of becoming somebody else. Yet both share a feeling of longing to be elsewhere, drifting somewhere between a bureaucratic world catched in work by Lasse Schmidt Hansen and the world of dreams or fantasies, as in Marko Tadić’s collages and film animation. Elsewhere in the exhibition a diversity of media such as drawing, text, objects, video, installation and performance all reflect on the fragile net of lived conditions. While they remain ‘unencoded’ at some level, and thus leave the viewer with a very wide field of associations, they are intended to construct a collective atmosphere, becoming dependent on, or at least complementing, each other for the duration of the exhibition, just until they are disassembled without reproach.

Acknowledgments:
Artists, Vlatka Horvat, William Ihle, Anne Szefer Karsen, Bojana Švertasek, Grzegorz Zygier.
Gallery Chert, Gallery Experimenter, Gallery Hauser & Wirth, Gallery i8, Gallery Patrick Painter, Gallery Gregor Podnar.

Supported by:
Galerija Kapelica
International Centre of Graphic Arts

Guided tours of the exhibition will take place on Friday, December 20, and Thursday, January 23 at 6 pm.

The programme of Škuc Gallery and the exhibition are supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and Cultural Department of the City of Ljubljana.

Image: David Horvitz / Sad, Depressed, People / 2012

Opening of the exhibition on Thursday, 19th of December at 7 pm

Škuc Gallery
Stari trg 21- Ljubljana
Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-7pm
Free admission

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