One part of this story has begun when my then-roommate had Roman as his guest in our student room. Roman came to study at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts. meeting him meant for me, immersed in books, notes and thoughts on Renaissance and Medieval art, a close contact with live contemporaneity, albeit in rudimentary form. Unfortunately or fortunately – this bears little importance today – I wasn’t actually drawn by it. Still, following Roman’s urging, I attended the lectures on Art theory at his school. My school was certainly not capable for such overview. On the other hand, during the time that would be named free in some capitalist-social narratives, Roman and I were becoming close friends. I also went with him through my artistic initiations, from the odd turpentine bath to the first exhibition in the role of curator.

Then, a few years later, Robertina entered the story. Roman and her lived together and she has gone through a true initiation in the sculptor’s calling where her school was directing her. Roman was making his paintings, then diverted from oil paints to drawings in coal. Robertina was moving from wooden sculptures, glass objects and other materials towards the video and other electronic technologies. Yet she told me lately that the symposium in Hungary, where she has had the opportunity once again to work on her wooden log, was a wonderful experience.

The second part of the story has begun approximately one year ago, when this laboratory group has gathered and when different questions on my profession began simmering in me through our collective being. Back then, I didn’t feel a need to distinguish between custodian and curator; still, I have already been questioning myself for a certain time on the role I was performing in the world of art and on the way I was doing it. Among numerous professional-life questions, there was a doubt in the legitimacy of my dealing as curator with the work of an artist who was my friend. My knowledge of modern and contemporary art springs out of friendship; and if I give it a sincere thought, I don’t know if I believe in Roman’s and Roberta’s work because I know where it comes from, because somehow I know their souls when faced with their work, or because it synchronises with some pattern that I have adopted through my experience and I follow it over and again as the operator of sincerity and truth. Actually, what I deal with in both cases is the question of faith; I am convinced that, as long as I follow it sincerely, I cannot fail as this is the path of truth. My truth, to be sure, but is it at all possible to expect something more? Last but not least, this is not the case of verifying or strengthening my credibility in the eyes of fourth parties. I am certainly more interested in my position as third party: one who examines oneself. After all, it is more important for each person to examine for oneself the sincerity and the power of works of those authors one respects and is fond of. Life consists of people and interhuman relations but then comes the ruler – the capital. And it is only then that I wish you would question me on the legitimacy of my gesture.

Vasja Nagy