PROJECTS | Exhibitions
Proximity Effect
The image of transition displayed in video works or
how the space has been disintegrating.
15 March–8 May 2016
Vžigalica Gallery, Trg francoske revolucije 7, Ljubljana
Within the context of DIVA Station, an archive of video and new media art, SCCA-Ljubljana is continuously preparing exhibitions with specific themes involving in-depth research. In 2016, the current exhibition curated by Nika Grabar questions the meaning of space in chosen video works by artists Zemira Alajbegović, Neven Korda/Borghesia, Marko Peljhan, Sašo Podgoršek & Iztok Kovač, Nataša Prosenc Stearns, Miha Vipotnik.
Considering the fact that the curated selection was based on observations of the use of space and architecture in videos, the exhibition concept is exploring the question of how to provide the chosen videos with an adequate setting that would at the same time address their contents. As a result, the exhibition takes the visitor on a tour of six different spatial installations beginning with spatial screenings (Discipline, Vertigo Bird), to be followed by installations placing the video in a relationship with the spatial object, and thereby with the human body (Path of Crazy Wisdom, The Park of Culture, Construct, Quick/Slow).
You are cordially invited to attend the opening of the exhibition Proximity Effect on Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 7 pm. at the Vžigalica Gallery in Ljubljana.
Invitation leaflet (pdf)
PROXIMITY EFFECT
What can I see and what does it mean? What does the image speak of, and what about its background? Could we extract from a spatial video the ratio between the moving image and the period of changes that marked a certain milieu?
The 1990s were considered a season of optimism, when a better future was supposed to be showing on the horizon of independence. Today, we are looking at this period through a different lens. In the light of global prospects, it seems necessary to rethink what was “actually” going on at the time. A careful look back shows that the transitional optimism was not as monolithic after all. It was only that the imaginary success story was louder. Indeed, architecture was constructing a new world boldly, but in art we can trace persisting doubts. In creating their own story, artists were showing a different image of the milieu. To put it another way, they were trying to uncover the cracks of what in the vigour of the times was rather overlooked or withheld.
Considering the fact that the curated selection was based on observations of the use of space and architecture in videos, the exhibition concept is exploring the question of how to provide the chosen videos with an adequate setting that would at the same time address their contents. As a result, the exhibition takes the visitor on a tour of six different spatial installations beginning with spatial screenings (Discipline, Vertigo Bird), to be followed by installations placing the video in a relationship with the spatial object, and thereby with the human body (Path of Crazy Wisdom, The Park of Culture, Construct, Quick/Slow).
The video-image took hold of the image that conquered middle-class living rooms, manipulating, disintegrating and distorting it, placing its component parts into new causal situations defying the set gaze. With its introductory screenings, the exhibition animates the visitors from head to toe and further invites them to the objects displaying videos associated with closeness, isolation, apartness. This, after all, is revealed in the contents of the works exploring the recent past between 1989 and 2004.
What the videos communicate also uncovers an attitude towards the background, architecture, space. A series of questions is raised: In what way is architecture addressed, negated, emphasised in the contents of these works? What is its importance within the video in contrast to its everyday set image? What is the relation of the video towards the image of the space, and particularly, what meaning, if any, has been created through the manipulation of the context in which it was made?
Living in the era in which our imagination of space has been acquiring new dimensions through gravitational waves, yet when our ability to act seems to be marking time within our status quo, the divide between the love of science and the reality of disturbing events has been growing wider. What we are living in, in constant disintegration on our way to isolation, might be the past of a technologically dependent future. This selection of video works is just a segment in the story that repeats itself perpetually.
Nika Grabar
WORKS AT THE EXHIBITION
Neven Korda/Borghesia: Discipline, 03:46, 1989
Miha Vipotnik: Path of Crazy Wisdom, 09:58, 1993
Sašo Podgoršek, Iztok Kovač: Vertigo Bird, 33:57, 1996 (EN-KNAP Productions)
Marko Peljhan: The Park of Culture, 07:30, 1996
Nataša Prosenc Stearns: Construct, 12:00, 2003
Zemira Alajbegović: Quick/Slow, 11:47, 2004
ACCOMPANYING EVENTS
Vžigalica Gallery
Visit of the exhibition with the curator Nika Grabar
31 March 2016 at 5 pm
Ida Hiršenfelder:
The dimensions of video space and the art of projection
Lecture, 8 May 2016 at 4 pm
Today, video space is an endless three-dimensional universe, which has completely transformed the initial television frame in the 4:3 format or film frame in the 16:9 format. By employing a wide range of programming languages for manipulation of video images it has spread out numerous endless plains and folded landscapes that are in a constant process of relocating, composing, and folding. Video in visual arts has forecasted the disintegration of predetermined formats and position of viewing, which has been expanded in e.g. “total” space in the past fifteen years. Using video projection we may change any given surface into a dynamic video screen.
Proximity Effect, Vžigalica Gallery. Photo: Matevž Paternoster / MGML
PHOTO GALLERY
PRESS MATERIAL
PRESS CLIPPING (in Slovene)
- Exhibition opening: Proximity Effect, curatorial statement by Nike Grabar, Kulturnice, VAL 202, Radio Slovenija, 15. 3. 2016 (04:10 - 07:15)
- Exhibition opening announcement in daily newspaper Delo, Deloskop, author: K.R., 15. 3. 2016
- Exhibition opening: Proximity Effect at Kultura ob 22h, curatorial statement by Nika Grabar, author Nina Jerman, TV Slovenija, 15. 3. 2016 (od 02:17 do 02:50)
- Svet kulture, curatorial statement by Nika Grabar, author Maja Žvokelj, Radio Slovenija, 16. 3. 2016 (od 00:00 do 03:32)
- Blišč in beda javnega prostora (Splendor and misery of Public Space), author Gregor Dražil, Fine umetnosti, Radio Študent, 24. 3. 2016
- Učinek bližine: Prostori tranzicije (Proximity Effect: Places of transition), author Miloš Kosec, Outsider, 22. 4. 2016
- Contemporary Art, YouTube kanal: Proximity Effect, interview with curator Nika Grabar, author & camera: Aljoša Abrahamsberg; editing: Karen Elson; music: OKNAI (Založba RX:TX, Ljubljana), 25:27, production 2016
- Monthly overview on #viennacontemporaryMag of the most interesting exhibitions across Eastern Europe, handpicked by Tina Kaplar, editor in chief of Art Guide East, selected the exhibition Proximity Effect amongst Top 10 Exhibitions in CEE in March 2016.
- Contemporary Art, YouTube kanal: Proximity Effect, interview with curator Nika Grabar, author & camera: Aljoša Abrahamsberg; editing: Karen Elson; music: OKNAI (Založba RX:TX, Ljubljana), 25:27, production 2016; Contemporary Art emission is on view also on GO-Tv, each Tuesday, at 8:45pm (more: http://www.go-tv.si/oddaje/sodobna-umetnost)
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CREDITS
Production: SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana / DIVA Station
Artists: Zemira Alajbegović, Neven Korda/Borghesia, Marko Peljhan, Sašo Podgoršek & Iztok Kovač, Nataša Prosenc Stearns, Miha Vipotnik
Curator: Nika Grabar
Coordination: Dušan Dovč, Luka Polutnik
Exhibition design: Nika Grabar
Production of video objects: Sandi Žgajnar – Vimo d.o.o.
Web support: Vesna Bukovec
Co-production: Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana / Vžigalica Gallery
Art Gallery Director: Marija Skočir
Public Relations: Janja Buzečan
Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday: 10am-6pm. Closed on Mondays.
Free entry.
The exhibition was made possible by:
Lestra d.o.o. / Center projekcije
Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana
Kooperativa. Regional Platform for Culture
Ljubljana Municipality – Department for culture
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