Alkatraz Gallery at the viennacontemporary 2016

22 September 2016 > 25 September Alkatraz Gallery kindly invites you to viennacontemporary 2016 art fair, which will be held between 22nd and 25th September 2016, at the Marx Halle, Karl-Farkas-Gasse 19, Vienna, Austria. Alkatraz Gallery will participate at the "Focus: Ex- Yugoslavia and Albania" exhibition.

Focus: Ex-Yugoslavia and Albania

A representative cross-section of contemporary art from the Yugoslavian successor states and Albania.

This special showcase, curated by Adela Demetja, explores a region in Southeastern Europe: ex-Yugoslavia and Albania. While alternative and independent art spaces were founded in the 1970s in Western Europe and the USA in opposition to the art market, with their development playing an important role for the emergence of institutional critique, the alternative art scene in ex-Yugoslavia and Albania has emerged and developed for exactly the opposite reasons: the lack of contemporary art institutions and the absence of an art market. Therefore, the independent art spaces played a significant role in the establishment of a system of contemporary fine art in this region and in its communication beyond the borders. In some cases, they are the only places where communication and discourse about contemporary art can take place.

In light of the momentous changes that have occurred in this region and the sustained financial crisis, culture is the field which has suffered the most. The effects can be read from the current problems of public cultural institutions. Hence, the independent art spaces are currently the decisive sites for contemporary art.

The Focus will include works by young and established artists from these countries presented by institutions like Apoteka Space for Contemporary Art (HR), Galerija Alkatraz (SVN), Serious Interests Agency (MKD), Tirana Art Lab – Center for Contemporary Art (ALB), and Sok Zadruga (SRB).

About the artists and artworks presented by Alkatraz Gallery at viennacontemporary Art Fair:

Igor Eškinja, Project Room, 2011,90x120cm, lambda print on dibond, ed 3+2ap.

Igor Eškinja has created a series of photographs, they are close-ups of the black sand on the floor, which is the sand used for the installations, and it was the one used for the moulds when metal is being cast; as the spaces of the Pomodoro foundation were once a foundry, this is the way in which the artist brings the past to the surface. Strip-bare of the architecture, these images could be mistaken for some photographs of the sea. In fact, in Eškinja’s work the manipulation of the architecture and its geometry is the artifice underpinning his meta-theatre; and the artist fiction becomes the representation of a short-circuit between all possible perspectives. In fact the artist has felt the need to construct new contexts in order to adapt his representations in such a way that the work – the photograph – might be the final product of a sculptural and three-dimensional operation: in this way reality and visual space ambiguously coexist, both indissolubly united.

The work Project Room was the part of exhibition in Alkatraz Gallery in 2013 with title Day After that was swept away by an intrusion of the real into an exhibition. That’s why The Day After belongs into the Alkatraz Gallery, a gallery operating within the ACC Metelkova City, where intrusions of reality are a constant.

The exhibition the artist was setting up at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro project space in Milan in 2011 was never opened. Instead, the Milan exhibition space closed its door forever. The artist could not manipulate the exhibition space. The exhibition space manipulated him.

Eškinja’s concept for the original project was an installation and a series of photographs linked to the former Milan factory that was housing the exhibition space of the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation. On the grey gallery floor, the artist created a drawing of a rolling sea using the black dust, left over there from the former industry. The closing of the exhibition space stopped the exhibition. The project - with its intrusion of the real life from the story about the once existing factory - has become a trifling stone in the mosaic of the building’s history.

Andrea Knezović, Only Victor’s Justice, 2015, 47,5x37,5x12,5 cm,  afromosia wood, leather, paper, glass, blood, ed. 1.

From the beginning of history, humans have struggled with their inner nature. According to Schopenhauer, the core of human nature can be reduced to one basic instinct, the will to live. He explains that the universe and everything in it is driven by the primordial instinct to live, which results in the need for pleasure and procreation, as well as the avoidance of pain and death. Nietzsche later took that concept to another level, coining the term will to power or der Wille zur Macht, which he said was one of the forces driving every human being: the need for achievement, ambition, and the striving to reach the highest possible position in life.

This unavoidable compulsion for power and dominance is perhaps one of the most significant factors shaping history itself. The ability to influence and control certain circumstances, to exercise power in a political or social context, is endemic to humans as social beings, firing the hearts of those who are prepared to compete for the ultimate prize, power. In this sense, history has been made by actions which determined the realities not only of those holding power, but all of those who happen to be involved. Collateral damage was somehow always accepted as an feature of these actions, almost as an inevitable justification in the name of a greater idea. To write history is to capture immortality, but at whose expense?

Looking from a contemporary perspective at notions current in Europe and the Middle East, from geopolitical destabilisation, engineered immigration crises and economic exhaustion, it seems that throughout history, the agendas of socio-political circumstances are always being recycled. Too frequently, history is made at the expense of subjects who are stripped of their ability to choose, act and express themselves. Nevertheless, views of this process are always diverse; guilt, anger, resistance and vulnerability are noticeable on the both sides, among both the dominant and the dominated, with each side claiming their own reasons, driven by the fear of loss. The ruling class fights underdogs to hold on to power; the underdogs fight the ruling class to take power. Once the powerless overthrow their rulers, they are captured in the same perpetuated process of defending and maintaining power as those before them: the never-ending game for power.

Only Victor’s Justice is an installation which deals with the controversy of the human condition, and the power plays and geopolitical relations that shape the history we remember. The work itself is composed of differing elements, combined to create a writing set. The set comprises a box made of Afromosia wood, a calligrapher’s quill, a book and two inkwells. The book is entitled HISTORIA MAGISTRA VITAE EST and contains 195 empty pages, a page for each country in the world. The inkwells, one full, one empty, are placed beside the book. One inkwell is filled with blood donated by an anonymous immigrant (refugee) as a symbol of suffering and endurance; the other is empty, ready to be filled with the blood of future victims. The blood is the key element of this work, symbolising the perpetual sacrifice of innocents in the name of greater history. Those who write history often ignore the consequences of their actions. The interests of those few with power dominate the circumstances of anyone else involved. Who are those that dare to draw more blood in the name of greatness? If history is life's teacher, have we not learned from our mistakes? Or do we need to repeat the same lesson? Only Victor’s Justice executive’s executor’s tool, serves as a symbolic reminder of these conditions, making us re-think and question our position in the decisions we make.

Neven Korda, New New Films, video, 11 min, 2001.

Neven Korda is a BA graduate in sociology, director, video and multimedia artist with diverse artistic practice in the field of performative art and production of artistically projected images. He deals with the issue of video as an artistic expression and a video as a medium.  Korda researches, practices and records pure video art.

He has analysed the medium of video through his video works, which he puts into new contexts, to highlight the importance of collision of memory and simultaneous perception of video as a live event: in the form of CD-rom, spatial installations, website and multimedia lectures, as well as a mentor and an organiser  of workshops of basics of using a video camera and video archiving .

Neven Korda’s manifesto of artistic expression was the conceptual series New New Films (2001) - an integrated representation of the author's identity. Korda is also a creator of original theatre performances and unique audiovisual forms – video objects, multimedia installations and performative lectures.

Korda started using video in the beginning of the 1980s, when the market was flooded with affordable video equipment. He was a co-founder and the head of FV 112/15 theatre group (1980- 83) and a co-founder and the leader of FV Video (1983 – 89), an independent video production group that realized several art, music and documentary video projects. Between 1982 and 1988 he was the president of the Music al Division of the Students Cultural Society Forum as well as the head of its clubs and concert programs.  Between 1983 and 1989 he was a member of Borghesia group, where he was responsible for directing performances and music videos, as well as for visuals in performances and concerts. During the 1990s he worked as a video editor, postproduction supervisor, author of TV images, director and maker of propaganda films, commercials and TV shows for various video studios and several TV stations. During this period he teamed up with Zemira Alajbegović. Together they shot a number of short films, TV shows and documentaries.  Between 2006 and 2012 he designed and managed Parallel Worlds project that operated visual electronics at the intersection of clubs and galleries.

I Believe (Verujem), Reincarnation (Reinkarnacija), Nomad,  Autumnally Still Life (Jesensko tihožitje)  and  1 Second of My Life (1 sekunda mojega življenja) were created during 2000 and 2001. The image of Autumnally Still Life consists of found footage recordings, others are made of intentionally generated images. They evolved and were finalized at monthly events titled Goodbye Video (Zbogom video) in  Gromka club during 2001/2002 season (http://www.zavod-zank.si/korda/zbogom/index.html). At the same time the conceptual documentary Summer (Poletje) was also made. Videos were all created by  the manner of editing on the timeline. They were made in computer production of video in low resolution of  320X240 in formats such as JPG, MJPG, Cinepak and alike, that were not set as a production standard. They were enlarged for the needs of lectures at that time and rewriten to VHS. Since autumn 2002 they were projected live from computer by a programme for real-time manipulation of sound and image, Isadora. Later, in 2004, they were - except for Summer - round up into new work titled Angelic Garland (Angelski venček).

Igor Eškinja (1975 Rijeka, Croatia) studied painting at the The Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. His work has been shown, among others, at Manifesta 7, Italia; Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'Art Contemporain, Lussemburgo; Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Zagabria; MAC/Val Musee d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Francia; ADN Galeria, Barcellona; MUWA - Museum der Wahrnehmung, Graz; Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna; MMSU - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, Rijeka; Marta Herford, Herford; 2° Ural industriale Biennale di Arte contemporanea, Ural, Russia; Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos; FRAC Pays de la Loire, Nantes; Collezione MAXXI, Roma. He lives and works in Rijeka.
Igor Eškinja constructs his architectonics of perception as ensembles of modesty and elegance. The artist “performs” the objects and situations, catching them in their intimate and silent transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional formal appearance.

Andrea Knezović is a visual artist born in 1990 in Zagreb, Croatia. She graduated with a B.A. in Visual Arts at A.V.A-Academy of Visual Arts, Ljubljana. Currently based between Ljubljana and Zagreb, Knezović is one of the artist whose practice is closely related to exploring threshold states and ambiguities within social context. She uses art practice as instrument for reconstructing social paradigms through imaginative visual vocabulary as well as conceptual framework. Her works bear strong political references, mainly engaging questions of social identities. Knezović's works are characterized by the use of everyday objects in a middle class atmosphere in which identity recognition plays an important role. By demonstrating the omnipresence of a corporate world, she uses a visual vocabulary that addresses social and political issues.

Neven Korda is a BA graduate in sociology, director, video and multimedia artist with diverse artistic practice in the field of performative art and production of artistically projected images. He deals with the issue of video as an artistic expression and a video as a medium.  Korda researches, practices and records pure video art.
He has analysed the medium of video through his video works, which he puts into new contexts, to highlight the importance of collision of memory and simultaneous perception of video as a live event: in the form of CD-rom, spatial installations, website and multimedia lectures, as well as a mentor and an organiser  of workshops of basics of using a video camera and video archiving .
Neven Korda’s manifesto of artistic expression was the conceptual series New New Films (2001) - an integrated representation of the author's identity. Korda is also a creator of original theatre performances and unique audiovisual forms – video objects, multimedia installations and performative lectures.