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07 November 2018 > 30 November 2018 Kindly invited to the opening of the exhibition "Artefact" by Andrej Štular on Wednesday, 7th November 2018 at 8 pm in Alkatraz Gallery, ACC Metelkova mesto.
This exhibition by the multifaceted artist Andrej Štular follows the line of his recognisable manner. From his very first showings at the fine art scene, his work is based on recycling and, even more so, on the skilful and frequently witty intertwining of different visual elements, fine art techniques and materials. Collage and assemblage are at the heart of Štular’s artistic approach betting on animated transposition and combination of all kinds of found items while certainly not hiding the affinity for ready-made practices. His works are frequently illuminated by a peculiar patina which seems to be a logical consequence of this kind of creative undertakings, and they attest to a certain relentless lust for collecting that leads to the birth of a myriad of most different fine art curiosities, visual aphorisms and unusual objects saved from the ultimate ruin and recontextualised by the artist in new narrative coordinates. His works are marked with playful relocation of the elevated and the ignoble, the worthy and the ephemeral, the found and the created, and last but not least, the original and the copy. In this way, Štular emphasises the ambiguity and non-obviousness of the origins and conceptions of the visible and the fabricated. As to the contents of his works, the artist frequently explores manifold spheres of domestic psychopatology and various exotic oddities, not leaving out also more universal themes questioning the human essence, identity and place in the structure of contemporary world. Štular’s creations are never wholly one-sided, and the viewer looking at them often feels challenged, since the artist enjoys in ignoring the accustomed definitions and limitations commonly suggested by a work of art in the gallery context. Also prominent are his distinctive humour and cutting irony, always combined with playful simplicity which functions as instant improvisation at the first glance, but hiding behind it a profound contemplation and serious reasoning.
This personal exhibition brings a vibrant assortment of Štular’s recent works which, in the main part, were never exhibited before. Only at the first glance it is a cacophonous series of painterly and sculpturally “sensed” objects and images, reworked with minimalist interventions by the artist and thus resulting in entirely new visual narratives. Also on view is a series of small collages: with Štular’s artistic interventions, the items gathered from various printed editions transmute into an exquisitely poetic, partly even lyrical substance revealing enigmatic and fresh fine art language and invoking most different interpretations. The selected works, frequently found or created abroad, promise a unique exhibitory dainty pointing at the rich visual potential of the daily ephemera.
Matjaž Brulc
