MODESTY
L�via P�ldi
Currently, in the seemingly trendless and pluralistic milieu of contemporary
art making again there is a strong awareness concerning formalistic approaches
and objectuality – the status, position and presence of the art object in
the social, aesthetic and commercial triangle. Art in the 1990s was focused more
on the social context and participatory practices of art, its interactive and
instrumental potential for grasping the “real.” A wider engagement
with different social strata and the prevailing conditions of the cultural industry
have again raised the issue of the materialization of the artwork and led to
a re-contextualization of aesthetics. Modesty, an international exhibition and
publication project initiated in Ljubljana (Slovenia), has emerged out of previous
experiences and already existing collaborations between the participating artists
and the curators, which developed in smaller group shows and solo exhibitions
over the last few years and seeks to develop and transform itself with each new
presentation. Functioning not as a theme but an umbrella term, it gives space
to diverse artistic practices that nevertheless connect with each other on various
levels. By tracing the appearance of modesty – as decency, unpretentiousness
and quietness, but also as understatement – the show inquires into the current
position of the (art) object, in its formal, stylistic, social and institutional
aspects, within the selected practices. The participating artists do not abandon
the “classical” concept of the artwork; on the contrary, they very
much operate with this notion, with either slight or significant modifications.
None of them is confined to a specific medium: their work ranges from the production
of incorporeal and thoroughly mirage-like optical effects through the sculptural
to the employment or creation of technical devices. The project operates within
these parameters as it presents work of a transient character dealing with various
models of perception, the transcription of everyday phenomena into formal (visual)
language, various self-referential aspects and, last but not least, poetic intimations.
It makes room for the personal, as well as for a more imagistic and, in many
cases, quite playful engagement with form drawing the viewer‘s attention
to the value in primary experience and sensuality – the pleasures of looking
and finding something out for themselves in the process of encountering / interpreting
the works.
The drawings, sound
installations, video, painting, sculpture and photographic works of 14 artists
embody contingent states with involving double-takes, shifting points of view,
repetition or suspense. The definition and appearances of ‘artificial’
are also in question as we live increasingly telematic lives, where ‘real’
feelings, behaviours and perception are triggered through abstracted involvements
with artificial structures, and illusions. The photographs of Attila Csörg’s
Spherical Vortex (1999), made with consecutive or long exposures, reveal movements
that is otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Vadim Fishkin’s lenticular
images Molecule (Marbles) (2002) deceive the eye by playing with the pictorial
illusion of the artificially (and home made) built ’real’ while Ceal
Floyer’s 2 Slides (1999), the projection of two identical slides showing
two almost monochrome surfaces also examines a dialectical tension between the
literal and the mundane, and an imaginative construction of meaning forcing the
viewer to renegotiate her perception of the world. The deceptive simplicity of
the works are informed by the artist’s particular sense of humor and/or
awareness of the absurd. CM von Hausswolff’s Mobile Unit for the Detection
of Unknown Entities (2003) catalyzes transformative experiences continuing his
radar-surveillance investigation to establish contact and communication with
the supernatural world. Jimmie Durham and Maria Thereza Alves’ Pink Granite
At Work (1997) – part of the Stone Video series – taking on a deadpan
stance centers around the stone preceived more as a tool counter-pointing its
associations with architecture and monument. In their short videos John Wood
and Paul Harrison perform various moves and exercises with common objects in
the surrounding space revealing additional layers through the absurdity and humor
triggered by the confrontation between physical space and their bodies in a mostly
playful but occasionally painful and stressful situations.
The eternal drifting
of the oleaginous bubble through the air against the backdrop of sky and a darkly
distant landscape of trees in Rivane Neuenschwander’s An Inventory of Small
Deaths (Blow), a film made in collaboration with Cao Guimaraes, and Alexander
Gutke’s video installation Caracas (1966-2000) have both built a conversation
about sensory experience. In Gutke’s piece the animated sky on the found
postcard depicting the city center of Caracas bridges the evolved time gap and
continues to represent a reality long after the photo had been taken, sent away
and found. Joe Bari’s monochrome circle paintings Without title (2002-2003),
Goran Petercol’s Interspace 2003, or Werner Reiterer’s Star (1999)
are based on similarly precise observations and the direct interaction between
spectator and the art object confirming that ”actions do not begin with
thinking, but with very careful observation.”(Bari) Modesty has been inspired
by works that convey and dualities – conceptual and material and public
and private dimensions – weawing them together succeesfully. Seeking connections
between past and present, fact and fiction Tacita Dean’s Sound Postcard
(2003) traces an interaction between the objective and private worlds and the
overlaps of psychic landscapes defined by inner desires and obsessions. Leif
Elggren As if I was my father (2002), a performance video and a text connect
a intimacy with his investigations and contemplations about hierarchy and the
symbolism of power, specifically about the concept of the Monarch, the head of
family and state. (Modesty was curated by Lívia Páldi and Gregor
Podnar at Galerija ?kuc / Mala galerija – Ljubljana, 25 March – 3 May,
2003)
