Staying at Home with Zbirka UGM / Stojan Batič - Everyday Farewell
Staying at Home with Zbirka UGM / Stojan Batič - Everyday Farewell
Stojan Batič (1925-2015), a member of the first post-war generation of Slovenian sculptors, is a typical representative of figural sculptors. Since the 1940s he has produced both larger memorial and smaller sculptures. The extensive theme-group entitled Miners was created at a time when the official ideology encouraged collective spirit and emphasised the selfless role of the individual. In adhering to these guidelines Batič’s sculptures often express hard work, real effort and a superhuman struggle with nature.
The titles of certain individual compositions, such as Everyday Farewell and Daddy, When Are You Coming Back?, reveal a more intimate, more vulnerable side of the individual. The surfaces of the abstract figures so typical of Batič have a rough, sometimes even ornamentally designed relief structure that has become a trademark of the sculptor’s work. His time as a youth growing up in a mining town, especially during times of severe economic crisis, and first-hand experience of working in a mine left such a profound impact on Batič that he continued, in his art, to return to the subject of miners and the mining town of Trbovlje. This is also true in the case of the cycle created in 1965, in which pieces of lignite, calcite and common industrially-designed mining paraphernalia were merged to form abstract yet highly expressive modern objects.
