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Timofey Radya, Figure
#1: Stability, 2012
EVERYTHING
AND NOTHING
Sanela
Jahić, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Vladimir Logutov,
Timofey Radya, Mark Požlep.
31.7.-24.8.2014
You are
kindly invited to attend the opening of the exhibition,
which will take place on Thursday, 31 July, at
8 pm at Škuc Gallery.
“I wonder why I lied to myself that I had
never been here and was totally ignorant of this place – in
fact,
it's just like anywhere else here,
only
the feeling is stronger and incomprehension deeper”.[1]
The
perception of the fourth dimension explored by the
exhibition Everything and Nothing is not
transcendental, analogue-spatial or temporal dimension, but
is rather determined by current social, political and
cultural dimensions and uses the avant-garde tradition as a
meta-language which progresses from everything to nothing,
which equals everything[2]
by purifying artistic activity until it
becomes a clear, engaged statement, still determined by the
restrictive parameters of our actions. Although it is
unlikely real change will occur, the fact that we can engage
with the idea brings us closer.
When Ilya
Kabakov created The Man Who Flew into Space from his
Apartment (1988), he was not concerned with utopia.
Individual re-appropriation freed the cosmic dream from
being closed within the system and re-established its
primary essence - an essence which is not fixed, has no
definite form and is not institutionalised, and whose
genuineness can only be collective.[3]
Based on
these parameters, the exhibition presents a collective urge
for change, or a possibility of change, in all its vitality,
independent of image transfer and original context, which
goes beyond imitation and appropriation.
An
indispensable dialogue between past and present is presented
in the work of Zhanna Kadyrova, who uses ceramic tiles to
fill the cracks between different temporal layers, returning
life to everyday things, to catch and position our bright
yet hazy image of the present. Like an aureola, this spatial
intervention reveals a new symbolic dimension in the various
possibilities of the present.
Accepting
the division of visual perception into the spatial and
semiotic proposed by Timur Novikov, the work of Vladimir
Logutov overlaps various realities, with prohibitory signs
that reveal the real coordinates of our perspective. The
search for new meanings that can overcome ordinary ones and
establish a supra-rational solution is also manifest in the
performative action of Timofey Radya’s Figure #1:
Stability. As in the work Trips to the Country by
Collective Actions, nature serves as a tabula rasa. In
Radya’s work nature is clear and free of ideology, and
through a liberating aesthetic experience, nature engages
the viewer, toying with their curiosity and inviting them to
participate in a metaphorical construction without mystical
slogans about a loss of trust in authority.
The
incandescent rays of light in Private Suns by Nikita
Kadan reflects an aura of freedom – which is increasingly
being reduced in public space – from a private space. The
visitors remain outside the utopian horizons created by the
shining image of the neon suns of a post-socialist metal
grid, where others (artists?) have sought to find a new
dimension. The grid is only effective as a formal and
ideological tool when it is not perceived as an escapist
structure. However, unlike in the previously mentioned work
by Kabakov, the exhibited works do not focus on a yearning
to escape, but on discovering new possibilities here and now
and, consequently, taking action.
It seems
that time – the fourth dimension in physics – has been
suspended in Sanela Jahić’s kinetic installation, where
movement – a synonym for change – is what enables
individuals to liberate themselves from the dominant
mechanism, which is revealed to have absolute supremacy.
Different
strategies, which all rely on full and emptiness as
contradictory essences, use different materials, unexpected
elements or manipulate the field of perception or movement
to create a meditative emptiness that does not refute the
present, but expresses it and invites one to think about the
present from a specific position.
The
position expressed by the work One Dog, a Man and an
Island does not lack romanticism, and is full of
insecurities and doubts, but is also bold. The individual’s
existential journey becomes a metaphor for finding new
intellectual, philosophical and spiritual dimensions and is
shown as an indispensable experience for overcoming
everything around us and the nothingness that we feel when
weighing our existence.
Curator: Yasmin Martin
Vodopivec
Accompanying event:
Guided tours: Thursday, 7 August, and
Thursday, 21 August, at 18.00.
Screening of films from the Antology of
Contemporary Art series by Evgeny Mitto and Alexander
Shein:
· Oleg
Kulik: Challenge and Provocation
(2009), 12 August at 18.00.
· Vinogradov
in Dubosarsky: Commissioned Painting
(2010), 14 August at 18.00.
Aknowledges:
Akn
Aleš Bracović, Fotoformat, Galleria
Continua (Kuralai Abdukhalikova), Garage gallery (Alexey
Misnik), International centre for graphic arts, Aleksandr
Shein, Maja Žabota.
Special thanks to: Ekaterina
Andreeva and Nevenka Šivavec.
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.
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