Opening hours:
Monday - Friday:12am - 6pm
Monday - Friday:12am - 6pm
27
October
2010
>
12
November
2010
Production: SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana
In collaboration with: KUD Mreža, Alkatraz Gallery
Curated by: Saša Nabergoj, Sonja Zavrtanik
You are kindly invited to the exhibition opening on Wednesday, October 27, at 9pm.
On Friday, October 29, the gallery will be open exceptionally until 6pm.
Tomislav Brajnović is having his first solo exhibition in Slovenia. An artist, who after studying at the Academies in London, The Hague and Zagreb, has established his profession within a specific, peripheral family environment in Golo Brdo near Rovinj in Croatia. His atelier is situated there amongst an organically growing and developing family estate on a hill at the end of the track, where he creates alongside his father, mother and brother – all artists. His atelier is also used as an exhibition space for one-day interventions, which he has curated for the past five years. In his work Brajnović deals with the eternal themes of ethics, morality and religion. He critically questions the role of ideology, politics and society and analyses the impact of consumerism, manipulation, media propaganda and the impact of collective and individual myths. His approach to these issues is soberly analytical, highly critical and totally dedicated. His strategies are mostly descriptive and narrative. His language is simple, chiselled and clean, whilst his message is precise and subtle. At the Alkatraz Gallery exhibition, Brajnović is presenting photographs and videos from his two series The Arctic Circle and Ego Trip.
THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
The Arctic Circle project set off in October 2009 under the organization of The Farm Foundation from New York. Fifteen artists, three scientists and the rest of the team (Director of the Foundation, a journalist and five crew members) sailed the fjords of Svalbard, approximately 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, for fifteen days. The hundred-year-old ship became a temporary incubator for reflection, exploration and co-operation with its carefully-selected passengers. The raw conditions in the fjords of the archipelago (the cold and the inability to carry out lasting interventions in the area…) where expeditions to conquest the far North usually set off from, dictated a specific way of realizing the artistic projects and carrying out scientific research.Brajnović made a series of interventions in the area: Greed, Fire, History, Speed, which he documented with photographs and by recording four videos: Peace, Genesis, Flag and Ego Trip.The video Ego Trip is also the interconnecting element of both series The Arctic Circle and Ego Trip. He focuses on the process and therefore continuing development of the individual, even completed works, which often leads to splices within the oeuvre of his inner opus.
EGO TRIP
The Ego Trip Series deals with the presence and journey of man’s (and thus the artist’s) ego throughout paradigmatic places and centers of power. The series consists of photographs of the artist in classic suit with a ‘mysteriously- lit’ face in different parts of the art world (from New York to Venice), recorded in specific light conditions, where day turns to evening. He created the suit with attached lighting by himself. It serves to emphasize the person inside the artist, his conceitedness and continued exposure of his ego.
Brajnović’s mode of production is an inseparable link to its conceptualization. The videos are generally captured in a single shot and there is virtually no supplementary editing. The artist himself also designs the technical components of his projects. Brajnović operates on the principle of a bricoleur, who, in acquiring knowledge and skills, reaches into this inartistic field, which he needs at some point in order to implement his ideas, whilst desiring to control the technical part of the execution when building his artistic world.
More at: http://www.worldofart.gro/current/
Hi-res photos: http://www.scca-ljubljana.si/press/razstava-brajnovic/
Photos from the opening by Dejan Habicht
