Art programme of the 23rd Anniversary of ACC Metelkova by Alkatraz Gallery

09 September 2016 > 10 September 2016 Kindly invited to participate in Art programme of the 23rd Anniversary of ACC Metelkova by Alkatraz Gallery on Friday, 9th September at 8 pm & Saturday, 10th September from 7 pm.

PFriday, 9^th September, at 8 pm: Opening of a retrospective exhibition of Mitja Ficko, A Path Narrow, Razor-Sharp, at the Alkatraz Gallery.

A overview exhibition of the painter Mitja Ficko in the Alkatraz Gallery encompasses a selection of works created between 2010 and 2016. The exhibition is part of the presentation of artists who operate in the ACC Metekova mesto. Through all these years we have remained a gallery which regularly hosts the artists of Metelkova. Beside the exhibition, we issue an overall catalogue, including a biography and texts on each author, serving as a reference and a presentation of a long-term co-operation. Mitja Ficko is one of the authors who established his studio within the AKC Metelkova mesto several years ago. The catalogue which includes the current gallery setting of his works will be issued and produced by KUD Mreža/Galerija Alkatraz, after the opening of the exhibition.

Ficko’s painting cannot be understood within the field of the discursive, through the dissecting and connecting of more or less recognizable images, their relationships and bonds that form meaning. What is determinative for him is not so much that which is expressible, but the manner and constitution of a form of representation that tries to transcend the scope of the word through the painting’s materialization.

His painting is not concerned with interpreting the “civilization” of images in the sense of their role in directing our values and concepts and shaping our everyday consciousness. He is not interested in the socially marked image, the image contaminated by the characteristic impulses of the outside world, but in the image that is created as a result of some more or less constant inner accompaniment, states of mind and mental conceptions, which the painting tries to show. For him, the painting is not a “sacred object” in the sense of a metaphysical display of the art of painting, nor is it a field for deconstructing its own history; rather, it is a means of communication through which inner aspirations, states of mind, and insights can be expressed and the most deep-rooted feelings released. Here the weight of personal experience proves to be weightier than the collective perception of contemporaneity.

(Excerpt from On the Thin Line between the Visible and the Expressible, from the book Mitja Ficko Pictures / Paintings 2001-8, by Nadja Gnamuš, published March 2009).

Mitja Ficko (born in 1973, Murska Sobota, Slovenia) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts (under the guidance of Prof. Janez Bernik and Prof. Gustav Gnamuš). He attained his BA in 1999 and MA  in 2002 (by Prof. Metka Krašovec). He has won several awards and scholarships, among others in 2003 he received the Golden Bird Award (Zlata ptica) in the field of Fine Arts. He lives and works in Ljubljana and Mohor.

The exhibition is on display until 30th September.

Saturday, 10th September 2016, 7 pm: Auction of Artworks, in front of Alkatraz Gallery.

Have you ever attended an auction of artworks? Serious faces, tightly-tied ties, bourgeois interiors, predictable scenario of the event. Metelkova has created its own version of painting and sculpture marketing, besides the traditional function, also including the added Metelkova value. Just imagine people from all walks of life (serious collectors, Metalkova goers, journalists, rubberneckers, winners of the system’s transformation, with fat wallets etc.) inside a damaged building and a hyperactive auctioneer, whose appearance is actually a noisy performance: long before stand-up comedy was given its name, the Auction of Artistic Artefacts had had its loyal fans. The main actor - Goran Medjugorac - Gogi - became a cult personality for his improvised inserts, witty comments, and unique characteristics of Metelkova artists. At the 23rd Anniversary we will hear once more his legendary for a farthing you can get… And the bizarre meeting of underground art and serious business will continue.

Saturday, 10th September 2016, 9 pm, opening of the "A Piece of Cake" exhibition by Beli sladoled artistic collective, at the Channel zero Gallery.

A world famous artistic collective Beli sladoled will exhibit at the smallest of the exhibition spaces in Slovenia, in the 45cm x 25cm x 19cm of space.  The recent years represent a very active and prolific period for the collective, as there are few gallery spaces not having hosted their exhibitions yet. One of these rare spaces is the smallest gallery in Slovenia. However, the smallest gallery does not necessarily mean the equally small challenge, so the group of such reputation, despite the strenuous and intensive past period, still takes it as "a piece of cake".

Minature formats of the sprays and acrylics on canvas are representative works encompassing heterogeneousness of visual fine art expression, a cross-section and a meeting point of expressive  canon of comics, caricature, illustration and children’s drawings. The images in the pictures of Beli sladoled represent phantasmagorias of the quotidian, spiced with humour, (auto)irony and sarcasm as the means or method of critique of the “crazed world”, beyond moralisation and preaching.

Beli sladoled (White Ice Cream) is the name of the artistic duo or painting group. Their definition of art group does not exactly specify whether it is a real painting group, or the name is just a construct, an art project, a kind of concept in which we are also captured as victims of their artistic antics. Anyway, the group is led by its founding and only members Miha Perne and Leon Zuodar, who say that Beli sladoled is a painting group that paints with its right and left (hand). In addition to their painting and drawing practice Miha and Leon issue fanzines, books and similar art publications in a DIY fashion. They made a stamp for their publishing house and named it BS books & zines. The purpose of these publications, as they say, is a concern for the promotion of high-quality drawings, which is often pushed to the margin and kindergartens at the expense of contemporary art practices.

The exhibition is on display until 20th October.