Gallery Alkatraz: Exhibition: The Phenomenon Of Kitsch

Marina Gržinić, AinaŠmid, Polona Pokljukar, Nora de Saint Picman, Eclipse and Mojca Ogrizek

Exhibiting artists refer to kitsch through various media (sculpture, painting, design and photography) and all the works use kitschy colours, images, patterns, stories and materials to reveal immaginative and every-day intimate worlds. These worlds often lean on the media production of ideal (female) bodies. The exhibited works reflect these aswell.

Polona Pokljukar

MAKE UP PRINT

Video instalation Make up print reflects the author’s view of contemporary world where there is no difference between reality and its image. Mediated images merge with traditional social environment of each individual and become part of our most intimate feelings. This synthesis is now our natural environment, our labyrinth of life, where we struggle to reach the thruth beyond image. So we run between our fantasy and historical facts on one side - and our every-day routine on the other.

All this made-up reality suggests that we od not own our bodies nor our souls as the mastered, corporate instructions of proper use eventually lead us into doubts about our bodies’ certainity. Is it artificial or real? Have I realised the truth or have I just been brainwashed?

Make up print reflects universal moments of retreating to the body and to acchive this, it uses the principle of coincidence which excludes rational systems of guidence and control.

Polona Pokljukar studied art pedagogics at the University of Maribor. In 2001, she graduated in graphic illustration in Prague. Since 1998 she has collaborated in several group exhibitions. Projects Fire (2000) and Water (2001) took place at Sladki vrh. Make up print was shown at Gallery Hladilnica in Maribor’s Pekarna. In 2002, she took part at Mesto mladih festival, also in Maribor.

Eclipse

"YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME!"

»You shall have no other gods before me!« is an icon, which refuses its mission, that is promotion of the sacred that ignores troubles of a profane, limited human life. Eclipse is questioning the institutionalization of religion; the situation, when atributes of the sacred also become atributes of its propagators, who receive unlimited rights and power. Facts about object: round, 125 cm high, digital print on canvas, photography

Eclipse is a female tandem educated in visual media, which has broken onto the scene in need of the radical. It is propelled by a youthful drive that favours quick effects, obscenity and quasi-glamour. Its resignication of taboos triggers total visual confusion and thus disregards all rules of good taste. It is capable of changing with the speed of light, a plethora of popular identities and it does not show any understanding for ethical or ideological affiliation. It also deems strange all glorification of the unique mission and functional intentions of an artist. It has begun its creative path by perverting its own body in order to abolish tedious socially constructed prejudices and to establish, as an artistic phenomenon, communication ab ovo. The fact that its relationship with its own body is hedonistic, however, prevents any grave existential sacrifice and thus only offers to consumers a merrier sort of body art lovingly called - rhetoric soft porno kitsch. Furthermore, the tandem adopts intimacies of foreign origins, the act conseqently leading to the creation of duty-free zone for the deverse practices. The Eclipse environment becomes a public manifestation of carnal extasy and spiritual anxiety. The Eclipse project is self-destructive; after exhaustion of its blasphemous potential it will precipitate its own blackout, which readily points to its ability to categorically divide artist's haughtiness and the optimal state of his/her self-articulated artistic quality.

Mojca Ogrizek

The miniature paintings of Mojca Ogrizek express a colourful game of patterns and clear images which create a wholeness of meanings which can easily lead the observer into her or his immaginative whirlpools. “I began my exploration by searching patterns which have become global through printed media and internet. Some motives serve only as inspiration while I re-shape, unify, manipulate and puzzle others into my own patters, my own image fields.”

Mojca Ogrizek lectures art. She graduated in 2001 at PEF (mentor Mirko Bratuš) but has been exhibiting since 1997, often as part of Metelkova’s group exhibitions.

Here are her selected exhibitions:
1997: A/Petit gallery, Ljubljana, „DESIDERATUM“, international group exhibition University of Ljubljana building, „CIRKUS“, open air exhibition ŠOU
1998: Academy for visual arts Sarajevo, Sarajevo winter festival, Sarajevo, BIH, „ACTA, NON VERBA“, international group exhibition
1999: BREAK 21, Ljubljana, „THE CLINIC OF IDEAS - THE ECLETIC SOUND OF 999, international festival for young, independent artists Kibla, Maribor, „homo.sapiens.3000“, group exhibition
2000: Metelkova mesto, Ljubljana, “forma viva”, festival Manifešta
2001: BREAK 21, Ljubljana, 5th international festival for young, independent artists
2002: THE 25th BIENAL DE SAO PAULO, Sao Paulo, Brasil, “metropolitian iconography”, Metelkova mesto art center

Nora de Saint Picman

THE EXPLOSION OF MEMORY

Eksplozija spomina (The Explosion Of Memory) was originally a scenographic work, consisting of ten polyester sculptures (of a man, woman and child) for Eduard Miler's Eksplozija spomina (play by Heiner Müller). Made in 1996, Red Dawns festival will only present one of the sculptures.

Nora de Saint Picman graduated in 1983 at High School for Music of Ljubljana. Piano was her passion. Later, she finished Ljubljana’s art academy (painting) and since then she has been involved with sketch drawing, litography, ceramics and sculpture. She works and lives in Ljubljana, Kranj and Paris.

Selected exhibitions:
1991: Paris, Grande masse des Beaux Arts “ Les empreintes des baisers disparus “ Paris, Galerie Vaugirard, Salon de thé “ Aphrodite et Poseidon”
1993: Kranj, Gorenjski museum, City Hall gallery “Le sacre du printemps“
1994: Paris, Atelier Tedesco - Uzan »Printemps - la force du joie, passion embellie par la beauté«
1999: Ljubljana, Gallery Commerce, L'ntimnité d'enfermement, l'enfantement du maternité
2002: Kranj, Mala galerija, Leto poljubov Ljubljana, Gallery TR3, fixation de l’instant - la lumière, la couleur Paris, Cité Internationale des Arts, Un été - quelques balades parisiènnes
2003: Gorenjski museum in Kranj, City Hall, Prikazni/Orpheus -Svečenice/Žrtvovanje

Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid

Reproduction:CHANCE

Reprodukcija: CHANCE (Reproduction: CHANCE) is part of series Trouble with seks, theory and history (2003) which deal with the present space and time of our lives. The project includes archived material and reflects on new media language of virtual reality, internet, computer animation, etc. These artificially created »worlds« speak of our present world. They are an unique essay about art, media, history, geography and personalities who define our time and space.

Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid have been involved with video art since 1982. Together they produced 40 video art projects, a short film, numerous video-media installations, internet works and an interactive CD-ROM. In their 21-year long collaborative media work, Gržini? and Šmid presented and exhibited their video works and video installation in more than 150 international video festivals worldwide and have received several major awards for their video productions.

Selected awards:

1991: First prize: Biennial video manifestation Video Susreti, Sarajevo
1992: First prize: Videonale 5, Bonn, Germany
1993: Award to produce a new video work at Zkm in Karlsruhe at the Manifestation Deutscher Videokunst Preis 1993 (awarded by Zkm/Karlsruhe & SWF/Baden-Baden)
1994: First prize for original video music composition at the il Coreografo Elettronico, Napoli, Italy
1995: Award at the 10. Festival TTVV Riccione, Italy
1995: First award and the award as the best women video artists at the 1. International Video Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1996: Silver soire award winner at the 39th San Francisco International Film Festival, San Francisco, USA
2000: First award at Nuremberg video festival

Selected exhibitions:

1994: Europe, Europe, Hundred Years of Avant-garde in Central and East Europe, Bonn
1994: I and the Other, at the Beurs Van Berlage, Amsterdam Video Viewpoints Program at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York
1997: Presentation of the media installation at the ICC Biennial Manifestation, Tokyo
1999: Steirische Herbst, Net_art Condition, (coproduced with ZKM, Karlsruhe)
2001: Laboratorio ARTEALAMEDA, video-internet-cd-rom, Mexico city, solo show
2001: Freud Museum, Vienna, 100 years of Lacan, group show

Menza pri koritu: video film projections

The video selection and order of projections try to form a context from which a story can be born. A story with beginning, core and end that evolves like a chain reaction, like a rhythm without end.

Ana Gruden

THE STORY OF VODEB

Short film The Story of Vodeb is conceived as a surreal promotional film for a fashion label. Six short stories, each introduced by a famous quote, resemble the burlesque character of the silent cinema of the early twenties. The Karst landscape and architecture provide the film with a nostalgic and dreamy scenery, filled with surrealistic elements like stuffed animals, red roses and voodoo magic.

»Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like man, but they often find it extremly difficult to behave like gentelmen.«
»Love is so simple.« (Jacques Prevert)
»Only the most intelligent and the most stupid do not change.« (Confucius)
»Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.« (Charlie Chaplin)
»Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.« (Henry Ford)
»God is in the details.« (Mies van der Rohe)

IMAGE IS THE MESSAGE

Image is the Message: The media image of the human body creates new lifestyles and fashion trends. Images do not only talk or lie about reality, but they are also constantly creating it. Dolls from an antique store in East Village represent the media images. Through the video, they are entering the realm of dealing with appearances and reality.

Photography, film, television and video all provide means for a recording, reproduction, distribution and replication of an infinite number of visual impressions, which can be either real, documentary, but also manipulated, acted or simulated. Despite their ambiguous nature, they all infect our beings.

Marshall McLuhan’s saying that - Media is the message - is nowadays being questioned mainly because of the nature of the internet, virtual reality and digital video, which all allow for a significant freedom of expression. Nevertheless, the media already created a culture, based on appearances. We can therefore interpret McLuhan, saying - Image is the message.

Ana Gruden Andrejak graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana in 1999. She is involved in video art, graphic design, interior design an has been a lecturer at the International School for Interior Design in Ljubljana and at the Design and Photography High School in Ljubljana. Awards: 1st prize in the category of feature film at the 6th Slovenian Festival of Independent Film and Video, 1st prize for direction and diploma for the experimental film at the Festival of Amateur Films and Video in 2001. At the present, she is finishing her postgraduate interdisciplinary study of video, film directing and textile at the University of Ljubljana.

Tanja Vujinović and Zvonka Simčič

ANALYSIS

Video installation Analiza (Analysis), 2003, revisits human invention, acchievements of modern science and the idea of progress. The latter is based on ability to create, dissect and control. The video is a montage of already existing documentary material: production process of penicillin, liposuction, vaccination, genetic engineering, making of anatomic wax models, artificial insemination and imagery of hospital interiors: intrigues, sex, health, death, body fluids - and shots of artists’ own bodies.

STIGMATA

Video installation Stigmata (2003) is a short study of visual representations of horror and media terror that threaten the living body. It is based on scenes from the following films: Hunger (by Tony Scott, starring Katherine Deneuve), Julie (60’s thriller with Doris Day), Psycho, Brazil, Poltergeist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Variola Vera, Body Double, Elephant Man, Chien Andalusien, documentary shoots of women who supposedly wear stigmata-shaped open wounds and shots of St. Mary statues which supposedly leak body fluids.

Zvonka Simčič graduated at Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts in 1994 and postgraduated there in 1996. Her initial works included installations, videos, performances and photography. Lately, she focused on the use of new technologies: interactive video, digital photography and computer animation. Her extensive biography and cooperative work with Tanja Vujinović can be found on www.I-I-I-I.org.

Tanja Vujinović was born in 1973 in Yugoslavia. She received her formal training in fine arts at the College of Industrial Design and the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, and in 1998 continued her studies with Jan Dibbets at Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. Since 1996, her video installations, experimental videos and interactive works had been regularly presented at various spaces. Her activities range from video and sound art, to photography and computer graphic programming. Her repetitive sounds and visual patterns are noisy, compact structures which are reflecting ideological parameters of contemporary society. Since 2002 she works collaboratively with Zvonka Simčič.

www.ljudmila.org/vujinovic
www.I-I-I-I.org

Renata Poljak

WONDERLAND

Video installation Wonderland shows a mix between private pictures and images of Sarajevo 2001. From a series of old private images shot with super 8 camera, we move on to a field of red poppies, opening.

The whole video ends with disharmonic scenes, filmed in the city park of Sarajevo, desperately reminding us of an advertisement for a bank or insurance company.

Renata Poljak studied at Split Academy of Fine Arts and continued her studies in Nantes (E.R.B.A.N., 1998/99). In November 2002, she was an artist in residence at San Francisco Art Institute. Currently she lives in France.

Selection of exhibitions:

1996: City Museum of Split, Split
1998: Gallery Otok, Dubrovnik Architect Club, Zagreb
2000: Gallery Soardi, Nice
2001: Did she Fall or was She Pushed?, Extended media Galerija, Zagreb
2002: Wonderland, Gallery Soardi, Nice

Selected collaborative exhibitions and video projections:

2000: A Small Country for a Big Vacation, Gallery ŠKUC, Ljubljana Actif-Réactif-la création vivante à Nantes, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes 12 Positionen zeitgenossischer Kunst, Palais Harrach et Gallery Ernst Hilger, Vienna What, How & For Whom, HDLU, Zagreb Only for your eyes, Zagreb
2002: Here Tomorrow, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb Video-Zone, 1st International Video Art Biennial in Israel, Tel Aviv What, How & fror Whom?, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna Freedom and Violence, National Museum-Krolikarnia, Warsaw Shall I or shall I not, Artikel VII, Laafeld, Autriche Third Annual 12 to 12 Video Marathon, Galery Art in General, New York 3 Bangkok Video Festival, Bangkok
2003: Rest Assured, Center for cuatoril Studies Museum, Bard College, New York

Nina Kovacheva

LET ME TELL YOU STORY

Video installation Let Me Tell You Story (2002) invites the spectator to listen and see his or her own story through listening. S/he is involved in a kind of experiment, the viewer becomes a collaborator. S/he starts to reconstruct her own story. The melody repeats and repeats. It has many origins: the melody of the singing-box, talking and laughing people, mechanical sound of the box and birds in the background.

Nina Kovacheva started her professional career at the end of the 80's. Her work appears as objects, photographs, installations and video. Her work questions various conventions, stereotypes and cultural taboos related to body. She often uses her own body or details of it as objects of her research.

Menza pri koritu: music!

Tina Šterk, Vanja Dolinar, Zvonka Simčič and Tanja Vujinović

The ex-members of group Ul-uru (Tina Šterk, Vanja Dolinar, Zvonka Simčič) and Tanja Vujinović are preparing a special treat for Red Dawns - a performance about vacuumcleaning and pleasure! They explain that a vacuum cleaner is a recognisable symbol of any housewife and her clean apartment. But it can be used in other ways, too.

The band has been playing since 1998 and started off with the idea of playing on old, trashed instruments or instruments that the band members constructed themselves. They created sounds, resembling noises of nature. The first instrument they used was a didgeridoo to later join in with various percussions and drums. Their latest additions are a mix table and computer used as instruments.

Klub Gromka: Maestro - Improviser of the Evening

Evening of theatre improvisation, called Maestro, offers an interactive play of audience and the performing impro actresses. The evening hostess gives a frame reference to the actresses while the audience suggests details of the story (title, genre, place, role, …). The actresses find out their task only seconds before their appearance and have to perform, dance or sing the scene away with such brilliance that the audience will decide about the winner without any doubts! Both solos and group performances count.