Unfamiliar Area | Jan Martinčič: “2 Chairs”

09 October 2024 > 09 November 2024 Kindly invited to the mini online exhibition "" Chairs" by Jan Martinčič, which is a part of Unfamiliar Area project.

In concrete and iron and plastic and stench people move like bad footprints and everything that used to be work and remoteness forces itself into the everyday – in the moment of solitude and rest, the weight of your life hangs around you and as a stinky curtain covers your thoughts and air around you.

The work 2 Chairs by the artist Jan Marinčič offers a visual reflection on the loss of identity and alienation in the contemporary world. Two figures, exhausted from life, sit in a dark, claustrophobic space, their bodies coalescing with the smoke coming from them, leaving them and, simultaneously, taking them with it. By means of a dark colour palette and blurred shapes, the artist foregrounds the feeling of anxiety that pervades modern human, trapped in the routine and isolation. This process of alienation is metaphorically depicted through a formal transformation: the seated figures are literally transformed into chairs, symbolising the dissolution of subjectivity and entrapment in the material world.

The expressive images of the figures disappearing in the smoke emphasise the disintegration of the inner world, their bodies mere shadows of their former selves. The work of art could also be understood as a critique of contemporary society in which the individual is becoming more and more static, automated and detached. The title of the work, as well as the fusion of the stripped figures with inanimate objects, points to this dehumanisation. The artist thus poses the question to the viewer: what does it mean to be alive in a world focused on productivity and work, whilst emotions, reflection and identity disappear into greyness of the everyday?

Lucija Zajc

Jan Martinčič (2000) lives and works in Slovenia. In 2020, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, to study painting. In his artistic practice, he focuses on the exploration of the inner world and depictions of the feelings of anxiety, helplessness and transience of time. Nudity in his works does not serve as an idealisation or erotic symbol, but rather as a metaphor for physical uncertainty and vulnerability. The spaces in which he usually places his subjects are often dirty, anxious and oppressing, by means of which he emphasises and highlights the feeling of entrapment. The movement of the figures is rarely energetic – more often than not, it is tired, symbolising the burden, brought about by the inevitable passing of time and the emotional weight present.

2 Chairs, acrylic on canvas, 2023

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Other Unfamiliar Area exhibitions

Nina Baznik: Unfamiliar area (Neznano področje)
and others (at the bottom of the page)
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Curated by: Lucija Zajc
Proof-reading: Sonja Benčina
Translation to English: Ana Makuc
Financial support: Ministry for Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City Council Ljubljana - Department for Culture