Monthly overview on #viennacontemporaryMag of the most interesting exhibitions across Eastern Europe, handpicked by Tina Kaplar, editor in chief of Art Guide East.
Nature – The Lighting Guerrilla Festival I Vžigalica Gallery, Ljubljana
artists: Gilberto Esparza, Urša Vidic, Špela Petrič and Shreyasi Kar, Natan Esku, Tilen Sepič
The Lighting Guerrilla international festival, that celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, is dedicated to contemporary visual arts whose main medium of expression is light. In the year when Ljubljana boasts the title of Green Capital of Europe, they have chosen the topic of Nature to be the main theme of this year’s edition.
Numerous artistic interventions thematise different meanings that nature has for the man in the modern society. Nature has been inspiring artists since time immemorial, but the contemporary ones are not satisfied with merely portraying it, but instead they use advanced technological tools to actively explore her mysteries. The members of the ČIPke collective emphasize that “our conception of nature as a static, balanced and harmonic ecosystem that does not include the man or technology, is naive”. Humans thus have a place in nature as much as is the other way around. Either as the god-mother of creative inspiration, even mystical contemplation, or a venue for mysterious forces and process that raise scientifical and artistic curiosity, nature provides both artists and audiences a limitless quantity of material. The projects, shown at the festival, re-create the sublime beauty of nature, make space for playful substantial and formal arrangements and provide many starting points for various explorations and artistic experimentations.
NEBUĎLABUŤ / Don’t be Naive I SODA Gallery, Bratislava
curator: Lucia Gregorová Stach
The cooperative project of Jana Želibská and Dominika Horáková titled Nebuďlabuť (Don’t be Naïve) is a creative intercourse of two mature artists.Their common feature is a similar kind of ironical detachment by which each one expresses their views on serious subjects rather light-heartedly, uninhibitedly, wittily and as if en passant, using their own medium and visual language. The exhibition exploits the juxtaposition of the pathos addressing the viewers’ emotions (in currently historicising art of installation) with banality as a sensitivity characteristic for the modernity and contemporaneity (in photography).
Cold Look. Variations of Hyperrealism in Estonian Art I KUMU, Tallinn
artists: Art Allmägi, Jaan Elken, Ülo Emmus, Ando Keskküla, Miljard Kilk, Ilmar Kruusamäe, Holger Loodus, Mare Mikof, Maarit Murka, Lemming Nagel, Kaido Ole, Jüri Palm, Illimar Paul, Urmas Pedanik, Urmas Ploomipuu, Heitti Polli, Kaisa Puustak, Enn Põldroos, Tiit Pääsuke, Tõnis Saadoja, Ludmilla Siim, Vladimir Taiger, Rein Tammik, Enn Tegova, Andres Tolts, Silver Vahtre and Ignar Fjuk, Irene Virve and Marje Üksine.
curator: Anu Allas
The aim of this exhibition is to show the hybridity and versatility of the Estonian hyperrealism of the 1970s and 1980s. On the one hand, the photographic manner of depiction was a stylistic technique that enabled artists to overplay the demand to create realist art; on the other hand, photography became a partner in dialogue and a mediator of contemporary sensibility, intertwined with the conceptual, metaphysical, critical, symbolist and postmodernist trends that existed in art at the time.
In order to comment or expand on the historical insight into Estonian hyperrealism, some photo-realist works from the 2000s have been included in the exhibition. They either link the photographic manner of depiction to temporality and movement (the principle of seriality), or use it to shift the perception of space or study the materiality of photos. The dialogue with photography provides art with the opportunity to make various pictorial strategies of recording reality visible and comparable, and to ask questions about the power or powerlessness of the artist in opposition to all the other visual worlds that surround us and participate in our lives.
(Illusion) Interior I PIM, Budapest
artists: János Brückner, Réka Lőrincz, Ted Noten, Gisberth Stach, RobOtto-SZABÓ Ottó,
TOTHmartonemil
curator: Péter Bencze
The connection between past and present in one space shown in the exhibiton (Illusion) Interior is a joint project of Everybody Needs Art and PIM (Museum of Literature in Budapest), where the curator, Péter Bencze selected works from the Museum of Literature’s collection and those of contemporary artists’. These works together form the Interior, which offers a new experience for the viewer and makes him/her wonder: What impact does our environment have on our inner world? How extreme can be the presence of one object? Are we able to sense everyday peculiarities?
Marko Tadic: This is (Not) a Museum I Apoteka, Vodnjan
curator: Branka Bencic
The exhibition brings together a selection of collages, drawings, installation and objects, and it is formed around the idea of the museum and exhibiting displays. In his series Table of Contents or Accumulation of images from below the artist investigates spaces and contexts of art and it’s institutions. In addition, the exhibition includes a new animated film Moving Elements with references to for golden age Zagreb school of animation in 50s and 60s. Works by Marko Tadic explore his long-term interest in the legacy of modernism. His works represent a look back at the recent history as a visual narrative of obsolete remains by the elements of visual arts, architecture, or art history. The works build up an unusual atmosphere of oblivion, shaped by the interest in archives, highlighting the possibilities of re-reading and the relationship with the past. Tadic’s “accumulation” of images and contents take shape as different forms of reproduction, museum exhibition displays and fragmented and imaginary scenes and appropriations. His model of the museum, constitutes a metonymic model of architecture, as a place for (re)writing different ideas and positions.
Sirma Sarafova-Orahovac: Objects and Illusions I Sariev, Plovdiv
curaror: Maria Vassileva
The exhibition Objects and Illusions at SARIEV Contemporary includes works from different periods in Sirma Sarafova-Orahovac’s artistic life, as well as a selection of objects that have been painted by the artist. It carries the atmosphere of the artist’s home, with its many paintings and favorite objects, while revealing in condensed form Sarafova-Orahovac’s energy and artistic strength, which continues to have impact and relevance.
Miervaldis Polis. Illusion as Reality I Latvian National Museum of Art
curator: Daina Auziņa
This exhibition is the first retrospective of Polis and encompasses the entire trajectory of the artist’s creative interests, showing paintings, drawings and performance documentation of various periods in his career and testifying to his significance in Latvian art history.
Life o’ banner I Fundacja Nosna, Krakow
artists: Igor Ponosov, Michał Linow, Brad Downey, Sasha Kurmaz
Space and time are the most valuable commodities nowadays. Those who are taking over this first one are the owners of large capitals, branding specialists and advertisers. Commodification of the space means not only taking it over but also it is a reflection of the ideology at its purest.
Life o’ banner exhibition aims to confront with marketing products and to explore the ideas that arosed as a result of artistick reflection on them. On the exposition you will see works by Michal Linow and Igor Ponosov (in collaboration with Brad Downey and Sasha Kurmaz), artists who look at the same problem but from the very different angles.
Luminary Petals on a Wet, Black Bough I Galeria Plan B, Berlin
artist: Victor Man
“Victor Man’s path continues abruptly and excitingly and is one of the few “live”, “in real time” spiritual adventures with what we might probably call, for more accuracy and receptivity, co- temporary art (which, unlike con-temporary art, involves the acceptance of certain multiple temporalities, rhythms and traditions): a research open to a decisive “infra-” or “nano-” cultural level.”
Bogdan Ghiu, “Doctor Man’s Laboratory (The Uterus-Eye)” – Text to be included in the catalogue Victor Man, “Luminary Petals on a Wet, Black Bough”, Sternberg Press, 2016
Head to Art Guide East for more info about exhibitions in CEE
Images :
1. Špela Petrič & Shreyasi Kar: Sun as the ultimate capital
2. Jana Želibská, Labutia pieseň, 2016 photo (c) Martin Ličko
3. Exhibition view, courtesy: KUMU
4. Exhibition view, courtesy: ENA
5. Marko Tadic: Imagine a Moving Image, exhibition view, courtesy Laura Bulian Gallery
6. Sirma Sarafova-Orahovac, Exhibition view
7. Miervaldis Polis, Courtesy: Latvian National Museum of Art
8. © Fundacja Nośna
9. Victor Man, Luminary Petals on a Wet, Black Bough, exhibition view , courtesy: Plan B, Berlin
10. Michele Bressan, Central Market Square, Iași (RO), 2011
