making
discoveries, being a discovery? Dauer der Ausstellung: 12/05/2006 -29/06/2006 Stroj insists that the development of new
strategies and the interaction with his surrounding is a crucial aspect of his
work. The quality of his work lies in being able to show the limits to this
process by asserting that it is inadequate to promise an opening through the fabrication of solid things, meaning sculptures. The paradoxical other promise he
gives for this exhibition is the fundamental renunciation of the production of
compensatory worlds and people. This abdication would happen if one would
succeed in constructing the conception of a gaze, which is a contact. Stroj
admits that his sculptures merely describe such a contact rather than being the
contact itself. For Stroj, within the
framework of an institutionalised encounter “discovery” and
"touch” only exist as linguistic substantives. The artist admits an
obsession with language and the zest that creates an endless space between the
solid objects and the events, which happen on the surface of these object. The exhibition will show the traces
of the following ideas: The depiction of
longing, of departure and interspaces will be varied in several reliefs. The
relief is mostly organized in relation to a building and expresses in Strojs
eyes a restrained will to expand. For the installation artist and sculptor this
approach resembles more like a withdrawal. There will be a machine for seeing as a wall
object formulating the unavoidable cloddishness of every tempted approach to
the gaze. The machine demands the contact with the eyeball and therefore loots
the vision. Another relief will deal with a hallucination of
the gaze, which is not able to distinct accurately and to identify. In Samuel
Becket’s Company a boy is asking his mother repeatedly, if the space to
the sky is probably bigger than it appears. The repetition of the question is
ambiguous and the presumed closeness of the sky could also affect the face of
the mother, who answers the doubts of her son with a clongorous slap in the
face. The openness of a linguistic sign also creates a vague displacement for
the reader. The relief simulates the view to the sky with some sort of face in
between, which is moved through a hand getting closer and moving away at the
same time. The current
modernist exegesis is pointed out by dealing with a work by Paul Gauguin. Stroj
will present one of Gauguin’s paintings in a plaster relief, trying to show the
independency of the work complex of the represented and at the same time
stressing the inventiveness in order to break the euphoria. It is easy to see
that the paradisiac lust to control not only extends to the colour. The central
installation will be seen as an alternative confinement of the desire to
expand. The healing aspect of every touch will be displayed in relation to a
detail of Tolstoy’s The death of Iwan Illjitsch. The protagonist of the
narration is sick of the falseness and unkindness of his estranged surrounding.
Only in contact with his butler, by putting both his legs on the shoulders of
the frugal peasant does he experience consolatory and pain free hours. Piear
Paolo Pasolini adepts this detail in his film Teorema, where a mysterious
guest distracts the wealthy members of an industrial family: this happens not
only through his immediate naturalness (like Pasolini stresses) but also
through an actual touch. Misha Stroj is interested in the promises of the
artworks, or even the artist, for the private viewer. He therefore ponders
various occasions where he could put his shoulders to somebody's disposal. Georg Tiller Misha Stroj (1974/Ljubljana/SLO), lives and works in
Vienna. Solo shows at Engholm Engelhorn Galerie, Vienna (2003),
Group shows at Galerien der Stadt Esslingen, Villa Merkel (2005), Kunstverein
Arnsberg (2005), Lebt und arbeitet in Wien, Vienna (2005), Manifesta 5 San
Sebastian (2004) etc. |
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