Mismatches II
Eva Lucija Kozak & Adrijan Praznik, Mismatches II
UGM Studio
Trg Leona Štuklja 2, Maribor
opening: 11 July 2014 at 19:00
The exhibition offers an encounter of two seemingly so different painterly poetics that the two authors presented insist on the selection of a title referring to this difference. Nevertheless, there are some similarities: their paintings are formalised in a lively colour spectrum and intended remediation which is mostly, but not necessarily derived from the field of mass media and cultural industries. Reused motifs and forms were drivers of artistic process from the Antiquity to Modernism, when in fine art artistic invention and searching for the new prevailed. With Postmodernism an era began in which artists freely borrowed from previous art styles. However, today the loop is tightening and is breaking (also) in the field of art in the domain of royalties. It feeds from recycling and re-usage also political statements, and from reproduction procedures that are encouraged and enabled by new and old technologies.
The gap between the media of the smooth screen and the manually produced image is still relatively wide and Eva Lucija Kozak does not refer to it only with the form. Her painting monumentalises and stops the media image. To these qualities the artist adds her own vision of the world which oscillates between the sweetly attractive external appearance and the unbearable control hidden under the surface, and is often associated with contemporary technology and the youngest part of the population. The images captured in Adrijan Praznik’s works are just as ambivalent and feature desire, heroism and violent death. It cannot be said whether they are critical, cynical or idolatristic. It seems as if growing up in the early capitalist times, now remembered with nostalgia by the painter, has been “framed” by adulthood and has moved onto his canvases. At the same time both him and Eva Lucija Kozak use their brushes to wash the guilt off their predecessors who allowed the construction of this false world that they cannot renounce and continue to be fascinated by it. However, they have declared war on capitalism which they fight in and with their paintings.
Eva Lucija Kozak (1989, Ljubljana) graduated in 2013 in fine arts from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, and completed further training at the Winchester School of Art in Great Britain. She is currently a student of a Master study programme in biochemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology in Ljubljana.This year she has had independent exhibitions at the Alkatraz Gallery, while last year she exhibited at the Simulaker Gallery in Novo mesto, Palach Gallery in Rijeka (Croatia) and at the WSA Gallery in Winchester in Great Britain. She was nominated for the 2013 Essl Art Award and participated in group exhibitions in Slovenia, Italy, France, Greece and Croatia. She is a recipient of the Zois scholarship and the scholarship of the City Municipality of Ljubljana.
Adrijan Praznik (1988, Ljubljana) is the final year student of art at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. In October 2013 he spent a month as an artist in residence in Riga, Latvia. He has exhibited independently in Kino Šiška, at the P. Nemec Gallery in Ljubljana and in Sokolski dom in Novo mesto. He has participated in collective shows in Slovenia, Greece, the Czech Republic and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has received the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana Award for special artistic achievements and the scholarship of the City Municipality of Ljubljana for gifted students. His works have been included in the International Centre of Graphic Arts collection.
Dr. Petja Grafenauer (1976, Ljubljana) is a curator, writer and lecturer on contemporary art. In 2005-2006 she managed the arts desk of Radio Študent, and between 2007 and 2009 she worked as a curator at the Ganes Pratt Gallery in Ljubljana. In the 2013/2014 period she was a curator at the MGML in Ljubljana. Since 2001 she has been publishing critical, professional and original scientific texts in national and international media. Since 2005 she has taught history of modern art at the School of Arts of the University of Nova Gorica. She has regularly collaborated with the SCCA - Centre for Contemporary Arts Ljubljana and has co-edited the Likovne besede (Art Words) magazine.
Curator: dr. Petja Grafenauer with the cooperation of Jure Kirbiš
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