Boris Beja: Splendour ART P-5124 JUS NI 5.110.

The ‘Josip Broz - Tito Political School of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia’ was built at the beginning of the 80’s. Today the school, representing part of a bigger architectural scheme, remains abandoned and neglected, and disfavoured by the Croatian state, which has been, for a long time, looking for an investor to bring some life back into the architecture. The original purpose  of the school was to design political cadre. Workers of different skills and experience were coming there from all regions of former Yugoslavia. Primarily they would come with the intention and wish to be promoted after a year’s schooling there. Those attending the school did not only benefit in their work environments, but used it to establish and sometimes also exercise this benefit in a wider social environment, at administrative units, in cultural institutions, political bodies, in the institutions of the local self-government.

The so-called secretaries and referee clerks were laxly, unaware of what was awaiting them in a decade or more, strolling about, enjoying the comfort of the modernist architecture that – in some aspects – surpassed the quality of construction works of today. The aesthetics of the socialist construction still surrounding us at every step we take, and us, still enjoying it, in spite of the fact that it was created in the conditions of intensive ideological indoctrination. Perhaps it was also by the aid of the architecture that ideology got incorporated into the everyday life of the inhabitants the easiest way. This support should not be held against architecture, as the architects built numerous quality public and private buildings, communities, factories, therefore the construction infrastructure, which – nowadays – is a very rare case with draughtsmen’s commissions.

The worker that we can regularly follow in the author’s content, is – in this case – removed from the image, displayed at the gallery. The series of photographs is also equipped with a spatial ready-made installation. The black and white frames of a Kumrovec hotel depict a stroll around the place in the new millennium. The walk along the paths of the past strolls evokes the need for reflection, documenting and mapping; not only of the space per se, but also for the mapping of the ideological consequences of the time, that we - in a way – are still living today. A part of this reality is also the present recession; it is as real as the recession in the eighties was, with its nationalistic problems, introduction of even and odd days, coupons, understocked shops, ‘frozen’ (bank) deposits.

The photographs depicting the interior and the exterior of the Kumrovec hotel do not wish to be frozen images of the past, they do not wish to mystify or fetishize something that we have left behind, but they would like to incorporate the very past left behind into the present and our reality.  Herewith the author reminds us that we are creating our own future in the sum of the present and the past. The addition is a result of the consequences of already in the moment, for the after, tomorrow, the following day.

Boris Beja was born in Trbovlje in 1986. After finishing the Secondary School for Design and Photography, department of Art Grammar School, he enrolled at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the University of Ljubljana, the department of Graphic Technology, and finished his studies defending his diploma thesis entitled Entering into the Field of Visual Art Through the Matrix of Relief Printmaking. He completed the study of sculpting at the Academy for Fine Arts and Design in 2013, defending his diploma thesis entitled Death, the Product of the Subject. For his work, he received a Prešeren Award for Sculpting, ALUO, 2012, as well as the Highest Prize for the Contribution to the Sustainable Development, (Slovene Human Resources Development and Scholarship Fund).

He has regularly published articles from the field of visual culture on the web portal Planet siol.net. His articles, covering the field of culture, have been published in printed media like Klik, Folio, Tekstilec, Likovne besede and Praznine.

Working Title (Delovni naslov); Untitled (Brez naslova), New Gallery DDT (Nova galerija DDT), Trbovlje, Slovenia, sole exhibition, 2011

The Silence of the Absent (Tišina odsotnega), New Gallery DDT (Nova galerija DDT), Trbovlje, Slovenia, sole exhibition, 2012

Labour in Art (Delo v umetnosti), in collaboration with Suzana Brborović, The Gallery of the Brno Town Hall, Brno, Czech Republic, sole exhibition, 2013

WORKS (DELA), in collaboration with Suzana Brborović, Equrna Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia, sole exhibition, 2013

Exhibition of the 3rd year students of sculpting, Škuc Gallery, group exhibition, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2011

Utopias, MAO, group project, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2011

Prints and Impressions (Odtisi in vtisi), printmaking group exhibition, MGLC, Ljubljana, Slovenia; curated by Ms Breda Škerjanec and Mr Božidar Zrinski, 2012

Happy Ending, group sculpting exhibition, Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2012

The Art of Daydreaming (Umetnost sanjarjenja) (working title), Miklova hiša, Ribnica, Slovenia; curated by Petra Kapš, 2012

f art academies of Eastern Europe; Teloglion Foundation of Art, “Helios” Centre for Engraving in Contemporary Arts Centre, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2012

Le Printemps de Septembre a Toulouse, group exhibition of selected art schools of Europe, Institut superieur des arts de Toulouse, Toulouse, France, 2012

Young Art at an Old Venue, (Mlada umetnost na starem prizorišču), Krško Gallery, Krško, Slovenia; curated by Nina Sotelšek, 2012

Premier 2012, Gallery of Contemporary Arts (Galerija sodobne umetnosti), Celje, Slovenia; curated by Maja Hodošček

Materiality (Materialnost), Kibla Portal, Maribor, Slovenia; curated by Aleksandra Kostič and Žiga Dobnikar, 2013

Hotel Obir Reception, Vorspann Gallery, Železna Kapla, Austria, 2013

Production 2010 – 2012, printmaking group exhibition, MGLC, Ljubljana, Slovenia; curated by Božidar Zrinski, 2013