Tanja Lažetić / Flowers
Tanja Lažetić / Flowers
UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2
23 October - 22 January 2020
curator: Jure Kirbiš
Flowers is an exhibition of forty flowers in a hundred photographs by the artist Tanja Lažetić. The flowers in the photos appear as if they were portraits. Each flower is carefully selected, posed, lit and captured at the peak of its beauty. All different textures of the flowers, their stems and petals, trichomes and pollen, almost to the level of their cellular structure, can be observed in great detail on the very sharp images. The photographs are further edited, the colours exaggerated, turning the flowers into poisonous, unnatural hues. Are they beautiful? Natural? Are they eternal? Or are they fleeting? What’s their scent like?
The exhibition was titled plainly Flowers by the artist and the curator, similarly to how the previous presentations of the series at Galerija Fotografija and Galerija Kresija in Ljubljana had been called. The present installation is expanded upon with the addition of two other works, which respond to the exhibition space and to the artist’s visit to Maribor. Thus, the artist and the curator toyed around with several title ideas: Flowers, Fear and a Nervous Breakdown, Still Life, My Words Are Poison, Illusion, Not a Flower, Toxxxic, Mocking Nature, Flowers on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, What does Pepa say standing over the burning bed with a plastic flower slowly deflating in her hand?
In the end, they decided on Flowers. Let the images speak for themselves, while the other two works are a surprise for those who visit the exhibition. As for those who won’t be able to reach UGM Studio in person in these uncertain times, a conversation between the artist and the curator will be published on the artist’s website, offering and insight into the creative process, a look behind the scenes, the dilemmas over the title and an interpretation of the series. More coming soon to: www.lazetic.si/roze
In collaboration with Galerija Fotografija.
Tanja Lažetić (b. 1967) graduated in architecture from the University of Ljubljana in 1994. She works in the fields of photography, video, performance, ceramics and artist’s book. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Moderna galerija (four times at its U3 triennial), the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, the International Center of Graphic Arts (once at the International Biennial of Graphic Arts), the City Art Gallery, Cankarjev dom, the P74 Gallery and the Škuc Gallery, all in Ljubljana, then in Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, the Art Gallery in Priština, the PM Gallery and the Klovičevi dvori Gallery in Zagreb, the May 25 Museum in Belgrade, the Brighton Photo Biennial in the UK, the Festival der Regionen in Austria, and the Gagosian Gallery in Paris, Beverly Hills and New York. In 2015 she won the Bronze Award at the Nanjing International Art Festival in China and Third Prize at the International Ceramics Triennial UNICUM in Ljubljana, and in 2016 the Rihard Jakopič Honorable Mention. In the last ten years, Lažetić published more than twenty artist’s books. Her book Whore has been included in The Photobook: A History, Volume III published by Phaidon in 2014. Her photobooks are also included in the MoMA Artists’ Books Collection and the Tate Collection of Artists’ Books. She lives and works in Ljubljana. Tanja Lažetić is represented by Galerija Fotografija.
