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Between fire and art
Between fire
and art The exhibition Between fire and art is a manifestation
of ten months of intensive introduction and dealing with contemporary
art and it is also a reflection of the final selection of artists
and their works. The course for curators of contemporary art takes
place for the seventh time this year within the frame of the World
of Art: School for Contemporary Arts organised by the SCCA, Centre
for Contemporary Arts - Ljubljana. Participants of the exhibition
Borut Hlupič (Soya Holland)
Paintings of angel creatures are artistic presentation
of an "ethereal" world which the author got to know through a revelation
and invades him fully since then. Angels are the leading motive
of Hlupič's work, each of them accompanied with religious, cosmic
and magic symbols from the beyond. Hlupič's art is inspired with
God's goodness and its meaning is the revelation of the beyond world
in this world. Hlupič works as a kind of medium who transforms ethereal
forms into earthly forms which are understandable even to unconsecrated
people. Painting is, beside music, for which the author claims he
does not have enough talent, the most suitable medium for expression
of angels' world, because it can come out on the most simple, primary
way. That is why he always listens to music while creating. Because
of his great wish and almost obssessive urgency for permanent and
the more religious presentation of angels, his production is very
extensive. The basis for the painting can be anything. Angel creatures
are many a time painted on waste pieces of wood, doors of closets
or parts of machines. Beside the paintings of angels, the exhibition
Between fire and art exhibits a part of Hlupič's handscript Teologija
astronomije in arhitekture which contains 400 pages of text. According
to author's words the text is a book of revelation. The artist explains
his understanding and experiencing of the beyond which was, beside
the revelation, greatly influenced by the encounter with antroposophy
of Rudolf Steiner. In the exhibitioned part of the text, Hlupič
speaks about quantum art. He says the goal of art is immediate seeing
of the whole, art should start there, where the science breaks down.
A subject who realizes his existence and thinks about the essence
of a figure can create quantum art. From such thought originates
a form which is the holder of experiences of various worlds. Such
transfer must take place fully spontaneous, with a lot of motivation
and strong concentration of consciousness. Creative subject is driven
by a wish for self-realization. Art is therefore receiving and analysing
of impressions from the universe and comprehending the reasonableness
of connections among them. John Baldessari
At the beginning of his career, John Baldessari occupied himself mainly with paintings on canvas and collages. He started to question himself why something has to be bind into a frame so it is qualified as art. Everyone can make such art, but he wanted to create art which would go beyond canvas and frames. What he created since then did not lead to the right direction, it heaped up in his studio, it got in his way and started to choke him. In one of his previous works he questioned himself: "The world has too much art - I created too many objects - what to do?" He was able to start breathing again when he got rid of everything old and literally made a spring cleaning. He decided to do it with pomp so that the thing would really work out. He loaded all his works, created between 1953 and 1966, drove them to the crematorium and cremated them. He registered his project at a notary and published a kind of lawyer note in a local newspaper - a kind of obituary notice. He kept the remains into nine and a half urns in the shape of a book and exhibited them in a gallery together with small silver plate, a newspaper cutting and photographs from the performance. He took care for a symbolical remaking so, that he added some ash to the dough for cookies and offered them to his friends,... For Baldessari, this work meant a shift from painting to art which explores a dialogue between a painting and a text. Or, as he has promised in his next work: "I will not make any more boring art."... Baldessari was invited to Nova Scotia College of Art to prepare an exhibition there. Since they could not come up with enough money for him to travel there, he proposed that the students write: " I will not make any more boring art." on the walls of the gallery. At his surprise, the students covered the wally of the whole gallery. He made a video with his hand performing the same repetitive task " I will not make any more boring art." for the duration of 30 minutes. What does this work mean? Above all, Baldessari was interested in art which stimulated thinking, in contrast to the plain art of painting. That is why he has started to combine an ordinary painting with a text which placed an usual painting into completely new context. The viewer started to question himself about the sense of all this. Baldessari usually achieved that on a very witty manner and that is the cause many claim he is more of a joker than artist. " I will not make any more boring art." marks a passage from previous "only plain visual art of painting" to more "intellectual" art. Previous art, and also conceptualism and minimalism, have become dull. Infinite writing of the phrase ? I will not make any more boring art.? seems, at a glance, like a primary school punishment for something he has done wrong. However, it works more like mantra which will help him to clarify with his old art and to start again. In this decisive work he fights boredom with boredom. Should the viewer believe him? Did he succeed?
MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ and ULAY
Marina Abramović and Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen) ended
their relationship in the project, the performance and video The
Lovers/The Great Wall Walk. Together they walked over 2400 km of
the Great Wall of China, which is 3200 km long, so they could finally
say goodbye when they met again. The expedition lasted 90 days.
They started on 30 March, 1988, and ended on 27 June, 1988. Ulay
started walking at the western end of the Wall, in the south-western
periphery of the Gobi Desert. Marina Abramović started walking at
the eastern end of the Wall, on the shores of the Yellow Sea, Gulf
of Bohai. They walked until they met again at Er Lang Shan, in Shen
Mu, Shaanxi province.
®eljko Jerman
" Something dreadful is to feel, how it leaks, what we have. Although only a wish binds us on this, that we would realize if there is anything lasting at all." (Lautremont) Martine instalacije, in form of print snapshots
and a video, is artist's autobiographical confession which contains
the elements of a diary record and photo album. In print snapshots
we can see the apartment's interior of artist's late mother Marta,
where every object has an exactly defined place and its own 'hierarchic'
position. The video is artist's personal confession, which is actually
his emotional response on apartment's interior and objects which
dwell in it and carry memories of the relationship between mother
and son.
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