Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Magazine for the fine arts. International edition of LIKOVNE BESEDE, Slovenia.
Winter 2014
001
tional online publication conceived by the editorial board of Likovne Besede magazine the main
Slovenian publication on the visual and fine arts,
which has been published continuously since 1985.
The online edition was created with the aspiration to
connect related publications within the region, share
articles and raise awareness about the specificities of
artistic production in the various regions of Central
Europe. Beside the Slovenian authors featured in the
magazine, this volume also includes guest writers
Andreas Trossek, editor of the Estonian magazine
Kunst EE from Tallinn and Sotirios Bahtsetzis, contributor to the Pavilion journal from Bucharest.
Mojca Zlokarnik
Contents
MIHA COLNER:
SOTIRIOS BAHTSETZIS:
Mojca Zlokarnik:
Adrijan Praznik:
MIHA COLNER:
Silvester Plotajs Sicoe:
Miklav Komelj:
Andreas Trossek:
Oto Rimele:
ISSN 0352-7263
Publisher: Likovne besede
Editor-in-Chief: Mojca Zlokarnik
Editorial Board: Miha Colner, Petja Grafenauer, Mojca Zlokarnik
Graphic Design: Ciril Horjak
Slovenian to English Translation: Arven akti Kralj Szomi
English Proofreading: Arven akti Kralj Szomi
Layout: B&V Co.
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Tel.: +386(0)1 433 04 64, Fax.: +386(0)1 434 94 62; e-mail: likovne.besede@zveza-dslu.si, http://www.facebook.com/likovne.besedeartwords
http://likovnebesede.org/
To subscribe or order back issues of Likovne besede please contact us via email.
Topical
Miha Colner
The Economics
of Contemporary Art
On the book by Bojana Kunst, Umetnik na
delu: bliina umetnosti in kapitalizma [The
Artist at Work: The Proximity of Art and
Capitalism], Maska, 2013
engaged contemporary arts, in the field of which, the mentioned occurrences have still not been brought to full attention. To follow, she also addresses the role of the contemporary museum, which has been marked by Charles Esche1
as an active space of experimentation and discovery, and
exposes its inner clockwork. She places the institution of
the museum side by side to the way that democratic authority structures and corporations function and communicate
today, within which a constant absorption and distortion
of any kind of criticism goes on: this is usually accepted
with open arms as the ultimate expression of transparent
operation, encouraged and even financed by these same
structures, and consequently often completely disarmed.
There are therefore plenty of paradoxes in the art world.
Recently, a relatively wealthy private foundation in London, supported by public and private funds, which presents
engaged art practices in the spirit of the time, was looking
for volunteers to work in its gallery space, which consisted
of looking after the exhibitions, providing service in the
gallery caf and performing hands-on organizational tasks.
Even though this is not an isolated case by any means, it
was precisely this that spurred on public protests, which
the management of the institution took into consideration.
However, it did not implement any changes in the working conditions, as there was clearly a high enough demand.
In this respect the question that Bojana Kunst poses is very
apt: why do people want to work in an art environment so
much that they are willing to work for nothing at all? And
how can the workers especially in London afford this
anyway?
One of the more likely and frequent answers would be
that the reason lies in the general belief that art is just that
social and economic division, which may, in exceptional
circumstances, produce high added value. Bearing in mind
market speculations in economic terms, artworks may
reach a value that far exceeds their production value. On the
other hand, it is precisely art that serves as the adhesive to
ideology during times of significant social upheaval. Artists
are therefore mostly driven by the aspiration of achieving
1 Charles ESCHE, Whats the Point of Art Centres Anyway. Possibility, Art and
Democratic Deviance, 2004 http://www.republicart.net/disc/institution/esche01_
en.htm
Miha Colner
Topical
Miha Colner (1978) graduated in Art History and is an independent curator and art critic. He is a curator at the Photon Gallery and a member of the
DIVA project group at SCCA Ljubljana, which is developing an archive
of Slovenian video art. He writes critiques for the music and culture editorial office at Radio tudent, where he is currently editor of a show on
contemporary art called Art-Area. His critical appraisals are also regularly
featured in Dnevnik newspaper, Fotografija, Likovne besede and Folio magazines, as well as other expert publications. He lives and works in Ljubljana.
Sotirios Bahtsetzis
fast decline), have characterized the markets mentality and its aggressive superstar pricing strategy. (In a period of less than seven years, Schnabel prices soared
from $3,000 to $300,000, improving with this increase of prices the symbolic and
financial position of the artist, his dealers and his collectors.) Warranted or not, this
mixture of show business and stock-market mentality linked to prospective financial
success has, since then, infiltrated the art world and resulted in a Darwinian network
of success or burn-out. Olav VELTHUIS: Talking Prices. Symbolic Meaning of Prices
on the Market for Contemporary Art, Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press,
2005, p. 145.
3 Peter OSBORNE, Imaginary Radicalisms: Notes on the Libertarianism of Contemporary Art, in: Verksted No. 8 (2006), p. 15.
4 OSBORNE, p. 18.
Essay
10
Sotirios Bahtsetzis
of autonomy might be seen as this additional fetish character of art, which constitutes a reversed notion of fetish
as described by Marx. This is a category immanent only to
the artwork. It conceals not only the exchange-value of the
product, but, most significantly, the generic fetish character of commodity or capital in general, and, therefore, the
commodification of labor, which constitutes the value of
objective commodities.
The work of art comes to be an acheiropoietonnot
handmadeand thus theologized. The term has been used
in Byzantine theology to describe icons, which are alleged
to have come into existence miraculously, not created by a
human painter. According to Alain Besanons reading of
Hegels Aesthetics, the notion of modern art is closed to
such a concept of an icon.8 One might assume that, even
after the Hegelian proclamation of the end of art, the concept of art as an acheiropoieton prevails, transcending arts
demise despite its continuous secularization and humanization. If arts function were to make the divine visible (as
in ancient Greece), its function in the modern era is to
make the visible divine. In other words, over and above the
common phantasmagoria of commodity (Adornos position), we have also the asceticism of the work of art. In
this regard, an acheiropoieton appears to be outside human
nature and its social order, possibly following another disposition or systemin other words, creating the illusion of
autonomy from the (human) labor from which it arises and
to which it belongs. An artwork has the tendency to reside
outside the normal mechanisms of the market, to exist as
something that cannot be sold, as something that resists
exchange, thus creating the illusion of a non-alienated
social-being, although it is placed at the very heart of neoliberal speculation.
Let me give you a banal example from the everyday
world of art business in order to provide evidence for such
a paradoxical thesis. We can honestly say that the reason
for the hostility with which galleries face the mercantile
practices of auction houses can be traced back to this double nature of the artwork. By simply offering an artwork
to open sale, an auction house often degrades the artwork
to a mere commodity of exchange-value. In this case, the
artwork appears to be an interchangeable equity, like realestate and stock-market bonds, stripped of any mystifications and negating its character as intensified fetish as an
acheiropoieton. Usually we experience only the negative
results of this double bind between the economy of commodity and the economy of the intensified fetish. The
practice of an auction house can potentially pose a threat
8 The sensible rises toward the divine and enters art only at the state of ideality, of the abstract sensible. Art thus lies nearer to the spirit and its thinking than
purely external spiritless nature does. The matter it exerts itself on is a spiritualized
sensible appearance or a sensible appearance of the spiritual. Alain BESANON: The
Forbidden Image. An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 205.
9 Obviously, the conflict between galleries and action houses as presented here
is a theoretical example. The reality is often simpler: Because auction houses not only
often present the appearance of a free market, but also a powerful system of interdependencies between a gallery, an auction house and a private or corporate collection,
they controland monopolize prices and values.
11
Essay
easily earn more investing in the stock market and currencies, rather than buying art. Investing in art is simply not
lucrative enough. If we take this statement seriously, the
choice between the two forms of investment is actually a
combat between two forms of commodity fetishism: the
labor versus the intensified fetish. Both types of investment
are potentially unstable and they demand the readiness of
the investor to take risks. But only the second can safeguard
capitals ontological foundation.
We can expand the discussion and argue that a work
of art in times of economic crisis, such as the current one,
actually represents the ideological means for capitals own
survival. Economic crisis is linked to fluctuation of what the
fictitious capital to which, mainly, credit and speculation
capital belong.10 According to Norbert Trenkles analysis of
the current economic crisis, the growth of fictitious capital
not only provides an alternative choice for investors, but
also constitutes, when viewed on the macroeconomic level,
a deferral of the outbreak of crisis, which is inherent to
capitalist system. (Such a crisis is a crisis of over-accumulation, or, to put it in the vocabulary of contemporary macroeconomics, a crisis of over-investment. In this case, a proportion of capital becomes excessive measured according
to its own abstract rationality as an end in itselfand is,
therefore, threatened by devalorization.) As the outbreak of
a series of capitalist crises from the 1970s until today have
shown credit and speculation capital to be extremely unreliable, they threaten always to translate a particular crisis of
devalorization into a genuine global-market crisis. Credit
and speculation capital grow too fast because of electronic
transactions automation offered by digital technology
and, as a result, create virtually instantaneous financial
bubbles, always ready to burst.
Art as intensified fetish always masks its own existence
as fictitious capital, eliminating in this way any moral consideration regarding its speculative nature. We can then
assume that arts fictitious capital represents the best possibility for a continuous deferral of the outbreak of an unavoidable capitalist crisis, and, for that reason, view art on
the macro-economic level as the best option of safeguarding
the system deflecting a crisis of overinvestment. Compared
to credit and speculation capital of a digitally multiplied
finance, art represents in this regard a slow type of fictitious
capital. It requires its own investment time. This would
mean that art is the perfect defense mechanism, an optimal
deferral of the possible outbreak of systemic crisis inherent
to a capitalist system. Art can combat the stagnation of the
10 As Norbert Trenkle explains, credit and speculation capital is fictitious because it only apparently serves as capital. For it yields high interest rates and speculative
gains it for its owner in the relative absence of real valorisation takes place, which
always presupposes that abstract labor is spent on the production of commodities
and services and that a proportion of it is siphoned off as surplus value. Norbert
TRENKLE, Tremors on the Global Market, in: http://www.krisis.org/2009/tremorson- the-global-market#more-3383
12
Sotirios Bahtsetzis
13
Essay
14
Mojca Zlokarnik
Alenka Sottler (1958, Ljubljana) received her first lessons in drawing and sculpting in the studio of her father,
a sculptor. After completing her degree in Painting at the
Academy of Fine Arts and following her postgraduate specialist study, she initially only painted but subsequently
became increasingly involved with illustration, which took
complete hold over her. She has established herself as an
outstanding artist, particularly as a master of reworking
the black-and-white spectre. Her illustrations are produced
using a variety of inventive techniques as well as through a
very select mode of working, by which she emphasizes the
subject matter of the text in consideration. In this respect,
she is extremely innovative, which is why her illustrations
outgrow the role of complementary images, becoming a
multi-layered work of art. They are intended for different
audiences, including adults. In 2012 she presented them
in two separate exhibitions: Good Morning in Kibla Gallery in Maribor, and Good Day at the Alkatraz Gallery in
Ljubljana.
She has received numerous national and international
accolades for her illustrations, an award for excellence
in Japan (2001), several awards at the Bologna Book Fair
(2005, 2008), a Golden Apple at the Biennial of Illustration
Bratislava, a White Crow in Munich Among the latest
worthy of a mention are the merit award at the 33 The
Magazine of Contemporary Illustration Professional Show
No. 9 and a nomination for the Hans Christian Andersen
Award in Denmark (2012). She has also received several
awards at the Slovenian Biennial of Illustration and has
been the recipient of the Preeren Fund Award for 2014.
MOJCA ZLOKARNIK: You have attained an outstanding
position as an illustrator. You have established illustration for
adults as something special that does not really exist in Slovenia, with the exception of popular science illustration. The
new aspect that you have introduced recently is also to first
do the illustration and then look for a publisher, or someone
to add to the text. In such a way you have given illustration a
new role, for which I sincerely congratulate you. How did you
build your way up to this point?
15
Interview
vice versa. Sometimes I added to the contents myself, supported the theme that
the author had started, made it stronger,
even though it was not written down.
Logically, this led on to more and more
complex projects. I mostly worked on
them as a sideline.
What do you mean as a sideline?
I took on uncommissioned projects as
a sideline to making drawings for magazines and books. Or I applied to calls for
submissions for which my heart sang. It
perhaps happened that someone arrived
with a modest request in which they did
not see any potential and I made something more out of it. Later, poets also
started to seek me out because they sensed that I understood their poems.
The danger in childrens illustration is
the sickly sweetness, the conviction that
illustration should be in colour and conjure
up an idealised childrens world. Your illustrations are totally different.
I always tried to purify my illustration, to take up a stance on what I considered my most important line. I always
had to decide whether to go with colour
or the graphic nature of the work. I went
for that which more closely reflected my
sense of culture. I stem from the artistic
family of a sculptor, which is why light,
shadow and form are something almost
automatic for me. It would be a shame
to leave that out. Also, the culture of the
Alenka Sottler, Fear, illustration from Visions, the book by Niko Grafenauer, 2006,
Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts was
black and white tempera on paper
always part of my life. This is where I
logy of Culture course for a year as an outside student. I found much inspiration and I thought it would be a shame
never made it official, but I did read lots of books on the to not incorporate this affinity into my work. I simply foltopic during that time. It became apparent that by wor- lowed what I loved most and it happened spontaneously.
king in illustration, I combine two things that I love most:
Theoretically you also exposed the relationship between
word and image. I also recognise it in myself that I am the
strongest in the transition between word and image. This word and image in a very analytical way. Can we say that
grew organically, slowly. In Slovenia, illustration was illustration is symmetrical to the text in its relationship? Does
mostly for children, its function being to support the text, it open up anything new?
The relationship between word and image has very
so that children could grow a fondness for the Slovenian
language. It had a subordinate role, but given how hig- much been in question in the recent years. This issue has
hly we honour our language, illustration also had a lot to also made it into the contemporary gallery. Globalisagain from it. It had good conditions to a point. This was tion raises the issue of communication. The vast array of
the path I embarked upon as well. Later I noticed that I language groups has swung illustration onto a new level.
have a very good understanding of the written word, that I In the moment that we expected illustration to collapse
understand how one code is transformed into another, and along with classical printing like something old-fashioned,
16
Alenka Sottler
17
Interview
the book Visions (Prividi) are very well chosen. For instance
you used the well-known phrase: The copy is the same as the
original. When do solutions start to appear during the work
process? Already at the beginning of the creative process?
You have to get the idea.
The sovereignty that your basic starting point gives you,
the fact that you are a painter, is of great help. That is a strong
starting point. You are very open to experimenting. I see this
as your great advantage.
Of course, this is how it is in the world as well. An illustrator who is not a good painter can not function at all. It
merely becomes an accumulation of pictures. In the mass
of images that you have to make, you have to withstand
the visual theme, maintain your visual language. Every
writer throws you into his own atmosphere.
18
Alenka Sottler
Alenka Sottler, Good Morning, 2012, exhibition view, Kibla, Maribor, photo: Botjan Lah
In a quiet way I am constantly thinking about printmaking. I think that if my works were produced as graphic
prints, they would acquire that real graciousness that I am
striving for. This can be said for a lot of things that I create
in black and white.
Illustrating Cinderella must have certainly been a challenge for you. This is a great and frequently interpreted
theme. How did this fact restrict or inspire you?
I found it very hard. As you can see, illustration really
suits me because it allows me to experiment a lot and
change themes. Seemingly I am very tied to one field, but
on the other hand there is a greater dynamic to it all. I find
it very hard to persevere on just one topic for a long time
when I am doing a book, but at the same time this forces
me to focus. Cinderella was difficult for me because I decided to use the greys. Already the title, Cinderella, indicates cinders, ashes, while I also had a need for vibrant
tones. Also because of the Asian origin of the story, I wanted to combine the gamma of Japanese painting with the
Renaissance tradition of classical painters such as Piero
della Francesca. This was an entry into an entirely new
colour atmosphere for me. I drew sketches for six months,
19
Interview
Alenka Sottler, cover illustration Cinderella with the Birds, adapted from the Brothers
Grimm, 2006, tempera on paper
20
Alenka Sottler
Alenka Sottler, On Horseback, illustration from Cinderella, adapted from the Brothers Grimm, 2006, tempera on paper
21
Interview
Alenka Sottler, Medania and Medushko vignette from the book Why is Grandma Cross? by Lela B. Njatin, 2011, paper cut-out
Alenka Sottler, Medania and Medushko vignette from the book Why is Grandma
Cross? by Lela B. Njatin, 2011, paper cut-out
22
Alenka Sottler
23
Diary
Adrijan Praznik
Kunst hauen!
Adrijan Praznik (1988, Ljubljana) is currently completing his undergraduate studies in Painting with Prof. iga Kari at the Academy of Fine
Arts and Design (ALUO) in Ljubljana. He was awarded the scholarship
for talented students from the Municipality of Ljubljana for his work and
was also the recipient of the ALUO award for special achievements in the
field of painting (2012). He has shown his works in numerous group and
solo exhibitions at home and abroad. He has been published in the Tribuna
newspaper, Stripburger and Fotografija magazines, as well as the Praznine
bulletin. He is active in the field of visual and fine art with an emphasis on
painting practice. He lives and works in Ljubljana.
24
25
26
27
Interview
Miha Colner
28
Ren Block
29
Interview
30
Ren Block
I remember this video piece now that you are describing it.
It was also shown in Ljubljana in one of the group exhibitions
in kuc Gallery.
It is shown often since Kassel and Cetinje. It describes
the situation in 10 minutes, in a way that everybody can
understand.
Lets go back to the editions. These portfolios and printmaking is somehow your personal tradition. You started in 1966,
two years after you opened a gallery space in Berlin, when
you published the first edition of prints. What was the impetus for you at the beginning to start that concept?
In the mid-1960s there was a big call for the democratisation of the art market as a side effect of all this new
political orientation by the younger generation. There
was this political romanticism that artists should go into
31
Interview
How did you manage to convince certain artists to participate in those editions in the field of printmaking, especially
later, in later editions, because you were collaborating with
artists who were not really working in this field, for example
Marina Abramovi? How did you convince them, as this is
something completely outside of their usual line of work?
I think all these four portfolios are very unique. It was
not difficult to get the artists interest to participate. With
a few, who were not experienced with the different techniques of print production, I had to discuss all the different
possibilities. As an editor, I am very interested in offering
a wide variety, from etching, stone lithograph, woodcut or
silkscreen, to offset lithograph, we had to find the best and
most suitable technique. Often we had to visit different
printing studios. And to tell the truth, for the editor, this
is the most interesting part. And it is wonderful to watch
how often artists fall in love with printing after their first
contact with this medium.
We can compare the printed editions to the curated exhibitions. What was the process of working and what was your
role as the selector or curator of the editions? Could you influence the content and the final results of the works?
It is a very similar process. A portfolio is an exhibition
in itself. It follows the same rules of quality and harmony,
a dialogue between the different selected works. As artists
usually have different proposals, the selection of works for
a portfolio follows the same rules and intentions as curating an exhibition. Just the format is different.
32
Ren Block
Nam June Paik, Fluxband, 1985, grease crayon on offset litograph, 6073cm, Hamburg
consists of musicians of different experience, the first violins, second or even third violins. But at the end, they have
to play together to create one sound. A perfect exhibition
is like a symphony. It has to have a dramatization which
guides the visitor from one part to the other. But I have
rarely experienced this feeling. The ethic of curating is lost
with the many fast food biennials around the world. It is
not possible to study curating at university and it is nonsense to discuss curatorial strategies. A curator has to grow
with certain artists, has to live with them, and has to assist
them for several years. Then he might be an equal partner
one day and might even be able to conduct.
33
Interview
It is complicated
Yes, it is complicated. It is complicated because so many
young people have the dream to be curators and to study
curatorial secrets at university and then conquer the art
world. On the other hand, this interest in working in the
34
Ren Block
That means that all the artists should be there on the spot.
Considering your phrase temporary workshop, you were
including all kinds of creativity in your biennials, like music,
performances and public actions. Especially music is not so
usual in the context of the visual arts. Why did you decide to
put it in the program?
I grew up in the family of Fluxus artists. Music, film,
visual art, performance, poetry are not to be separated.
And if I work in Sydney or Istanbul, I have to introduce
this aspect of Gesamtkunstwerk. It is my confession.
Did you expect that kind of reaction from the local society? Montenegro is quite known as a traditional country, also
divided between those two entities, and this was a very touchy
topic at that time.
It was a very interesting political situation in 2004 as
Montenegro was in the process of gaining independence. I
understand that for some radical politicians this was pure
provocation. They have no distance. They cannot laugh.
I found this quote by writer Andrej Nikolaidis, one of
the rare independent critical journalists in Montenegro. He
You have been dealing with the contemporary art of the Balkan region lately and one
peak was the Biennial in Cetinje in Montenegro in 2004, which caused a big scandal at
the time. The most shocking case there was the
work entitled The Embassy of the Republic of
Kosova by Albert Heta, which was withdrawn
and destroyed before that. What is your perspective on it now?
I had heard about this work by Albert
Heta some time before the Cetinje Biennial.
He had planned it for an exhibition in Berlin, but the organizers had not allowed us to
post arms and the flag of the Republic of
Kosovo outside on the facade. In Cetinje,
the former capital of Montenegro, buildings
still exist, that used to be embassies a hundred years ago, but have a different purpose
today. One of these buildings is the former
embassy of the Kingdom of Serbia, now a
35
Interview
Maaria Wirkkala, Unaccompanied Luggage, 1995, 4 colour offset litograph mounted on silkscreen, Istanbul
36
Ren Block
Halil Altindere, Love it or Leave it, 2005, 4 colour offset litograph, Cetinje
seen all these prints together and realised that there is even
a lot of context between all the works which represent a
period of 20 years. So we published this catalogue. I must
admit that I am very happy about the possibility of seeing
the prints again in Ljubljana, and the place here, the beautiful rooms of the Centre for Graphic Arts, brings them
into a very special constellation. n
Miha Colner (1978) graduated in Art History and is an independent curator and art critic. He is a curator at the Photon Gallery and a member of the
DIVA project group at SCCA Ljubljana, which is developing an archive of
Slovenian video art. He writes critiques for the music and culture editorial
office at Radio tudent, where he is currently editor of a show on contemporary art called Art-Area. His critical appraisals are also regularly featured
in Dnevnik newspaper, Fotografija, Likovne besede and Folio magazines, as
well as other expert publications. He lives and works in Ljubljana.
37
X/X
38
Diary
39
40
Avtor
41
Interpretation
Miklav Komelj
Photographs as Emanations
1.
2.
These faces are placed into a common area in relation to
the same gaze.
Which? Whose?
Jean-Luc Nancy wrote in his text on Henri Cartier-
Bresson that the gaze as the gaze is always the same, a
part of the infiniteness of all gazes, as vision itself is always
the same, vision of a person who contemplates the world,
42
Miklav Komelj
Goran Bertok, Joe Hlebanja, Deported to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, 2013,
photograph, 66.5 100cm
their own life united in that which they have seen. Each of
them is completely singular. Each of the faces of these people has formed in their deepest solitude.
And yet they are connected by the same gaze. A gaze
into the unimaginable, into that which can not be the
world. Known are the testimonies of the Nazis, who told
people upon arrival at the concentration camps that even
if they would survive and wanted to testify to it, that no
one would ever believe them because what took place there
could not be inscribed into the symbolic structure of the
world.
Goran Bertok does not confront this with some sort of
humanism, but with a gaze that has never retreated in the
face of anything.
The gaze of the camera is not the gaze of man.
And yet it is his gaze.
There is no emotional closeness in that. In the wonderful
text Proti fotografiji [Against Photography], Bertok wrote
about the photographers who pose with their cameras in
their self-portraits:
43
Interpretation
3.
He was able to meet with these gazes in such a way, confront only the gaze that never evaded the boundaries of life
and death in such a way, only the gaze that endured the
gaze upon very terrible things.
Goran Bertok has never shied away from terror with sentimentality and ideological appropriation. He has always
known that beauty is, just as Rilke says, the beginning of
terror that we are barely able to endure. And he has always
explored, to where we can endure.
Goran Bertok had photographed the terrifying beauty of
sadomasochistic rituals. Goran Bertok had photographed
the heads of the dead, as they are blown up by fire in crematoriums. Goran Bertok had photographed the faces of
frozen corpses.
Only the gaze that had confronted all of this, could have
in such a way met, in such a way confronted these gazes.
When the human gaze and the gaze which is not human
merge as the same gaze, they merge without closeness. This
gaze is the same precisely in its absolute disunity.
Bertok recognises it as the disunity of photography itself:
And so Im battling with photography Actually, Im
battling with the disunity in photography.
Only the gaze into the gaze of this disunity can confront
this, by which the gazes of these people, with each one
being absolutely singular, connect into the same gaze. What
needs to be experienced in order for the gaze to meet with
the gaze? (Even if the eyes are closed.)
44
Miklav Komelj
5.
We need the gaze. Goran Bertok makes us see how the gaze
pierces the eye. n
Goran Bertok (1963, Koper) graduated in Journalism from the Faculty of
Sociology, Political Science and Journalism in Ljubljana in 1989. Since 1990
he has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including:
Body, Flesh and Other Stories, Kunsthalle, Feldbach, Austria, 2013; Death
Nature, Galerija Simulaker, Novo mesto, 2011; Post Mortem, Photon Gallery, 2007; Forbidden Death, Center for Contemporary Arts Celje, 2009;
Borderline Biennale 2011, Le Demeure du Chaos, St. Romain au Mont d`Or
(Lyon), France, 2011; The Magic of Art, The Protagonists of Contemporary
Slovenian Art 19682013, Villa Manin, Passariano di Codroipo, Italy, 2014.
Miklav Komelj (1973) is a poet and art historian. He has published the
collections of poems: The Light of the Dolphin (1991), The Amber of Time
(1995), Dew (2002), Hippodrome (2006), Unnadressable Names (2008),
The Blue Suit (2011) and Hands in the Rain (2011). He has also published
numerous scientific articles and essays, including: The Diptych of Federico
da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, Piero della Francesca (2009), How to
Think Partisan Art? (2009), Ljubljana. Cities within a City (2009) and The
Necessity of Poetry (2010). He has selected and edited the manuscripts of
Jure Detela, Orphic Documents: Texts and Fragments from a Legacy (2011).
He also dedicates his time to translating poetry and drama (Pessoa, Pasolini, Neruda, Davio, Vallejo, etc.).
4.
From where am I looking when I am looking at these photos? From which fire? Am I alive? What horror do those
gazes see there, from where I am observing them?
Some people find the photographs of Goran Bertok
murky. But no: the photographs of Goran Bertok are
immensely beautiful and bright.
45
Interpretation
Andreas Trossek
When a Melancholic
Becomes an Export Article
(Extended Cut)
1
2 Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia, online database (2012), see http://
www.cca.ee/kunstnikud/denes-farkas.
Three years ago when Estonia was in the midst of adopting the euro, a fine art photography fair was held in Tallinn
showing, among others, examples of work by Dnes Farkas,
an artist approaching his forties. Installed in display cases,
these black and white analogue photographs of delicate
paper models were suggestive of quiet, staged interiors,
exteriors and objects. Legend has it that the works were
not sold, despite the fact that due to a careless typo the
prices had been listed in kroons rather than euros.1 In other
words, the visitors all missed the chance to buy artworks
that will remain in the art history of Estonia of the 21st century at giveaway prices. Indeed, this may be declared with
some certainty now that Farkas has represented Estonia at
the 55th International Art Biennale in Venice and his work
is being shown at first-class art fairs like the Armory Show
and ARCOmadrid.
Glocal v. local
46
Andreas Trossek
47
Interpretation
Andreas Trossek is an art historian who lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. In 2007 he completed a masters degree in Art History at the Estonian
Academy of Arts, where he is currently studying for a PhD. He works as
a writer and editor-in-chief of the KUNST.EE magazine for contemporary
visual art. His academic research focuses on art in the former Soviet Republic of Estonia during the 1970s and 1980s. From 2005 to 2010 he worked
as a curator and editor at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Estonia. He
specializes in the fields of creative photography, documentary projects and
new interdisciplinary approaches to the medium.
48
Avtor
49
Essay
Oto Rimele
Figure 1:
The frontal approach in communicating with an
artwork
Figure 2:
Henry Matisse, Portrait of Madame Matisse, (The Green
Line), 1905, oil and tempera on canvas, 40.532.5cm,
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
50
Figure 3:
Andrea Pozzo, 1680, trompe loeil ceiling, SantIgnazio
Church, Rome
Oto Rimele
Figure 4:
Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 19551959, mixed
media, 106.6163.8cm. Moderna Museet Stockholm
Figure 5:
Anish Kapoor, Turning the World Inside Out II, 1995,
chromed bronze, 180180130cm, Anish Kapoor
Figure 6:
James Turell, Outside, Insight, 2011, Ytterjrna,
Sweden, photo: Stefanie Hessler
Figure 7:
Oto Rimele, Illuminations (ILZ), 2003, Galerija Boidar Jakac, Former Monastery Church, Kostanjevica na Krki,
photo: Boris Gaberik
51
Essay
Painted Images as
Generators of Colour and
Illuminants
A painted image communicates with
the observer through the forms and
colours articulated in the composition.
The observer communicates with the
colour and the form from the frontal
surface of the canvas. The colour enables the observer a sensual perception,
an emotional experience and a cognitive response. In this way, it activates
in the observer a space and an integral
perceptive experience. Colour is matter
which comes to life with the light in the
space and brings the observer information and a message of the state of light
but not the light itself. It is separated
from matter only by the human mind.
In the past, artists managed to separate
light from matter to a certain extent in
stained glass windows.
In my works, the materiality of
colour is hidden to the eyes. Colour is
present only in the reflection outside
the painted surface. A non-material
reflection appears as a reflection of
the colour matter. This reflection can
also be called a chromatic shadow of
the image because it emerges like a
shadow. When this non-material part
of the image, which surrounds the
image, is a chromatically intensive
shadow, which passes into chromatic
radiation, the shadow becomes its own
contrast the light. In the changing
appearance of the chromatic nonmaterial part, the light and the space
connect integrally with the painting
materiality into a non-material image,
which emerges and changes in the
observers active experience.
In my works, shadow is non-material, changeable; it is the most chromatic part of the image. When the
shadow changes in its radiation, it
takes over the function of light and
it becomes an illuminant.
(Figures 8, 9)
From Image to
Mental Space
For an observer, an image is thus not
only a matter enabling a sensual experience, an emotionally cognitive dimension of communication, but a spiritual
experience. Empirical and historical
dealings with images, which are placed
52
Figure 8:
Oto Rimele, J-H2-V, 2006, wooden construction,
colour, 1292227cm, photo: archive of the artist)
Figure 9:
Oto Rimele, OVUM-RO, 2011, plaster construction,
colour, 625113cm, photo: archive of the artist
in the frame of social and cultural studies, are very informative, but they need
to be understood only as part of communication as a layer which enables
the observer a socially based insight
into the already mentioned content
layer of the image. I believe that we
Oto Rimele
Figure 11:
Oto Rimele, Paintings, 2010, Galerija Boidar Jakac, Lapidarium, Kostanjevica na Krki,
photo: Andrej Cvetni
Figure 13:
Oto Rimele, The Light of Shadow, 2014, Crculo de
Bellas Artes, Madrid, photo: Damjan varc
Figure 10:
Oto Rimele, Illuminations (ILS), 2003, Galerija Boidar
Jakac, Former Monastery Church, Kostanjevica na
Krki, photo: Boris Gaberik
Figure 12:
Oto Rimele, virtual installation at White Cube, 2013,
London
53
Oto Rimele (1962, Maribor) is a painter, creator of artistic spatial placements and musician,
who experiments with the expansion of the
medium of painting by means of light catchers and generators of coloured shadows. He is a
professor at the University of Maribor.