Silvan Omerzu / Drawings, Puppets and Automatons
Silvan Omerzu / Drawings, Puppets, Automatons
UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2
Friday, 25. august 2017, at 19:00
Automatons and puppets made by: Silvan Omerzu and Žiga Lebar
Maribor Art Gallery along with Puppet theatre Maribor presents the work of one of the most important slovenian puppeteers, Silvan Omerzu. The exhibition will include his puppets, drawings and automatons, created for different shows and exhibition venues throughout the past ten years.
We will be exhibiting puppets from puppet performances:
The ward of our Lady of Mercy (2008)
Forbidden Loves (2009)
Krabat (2014)
and his drawings.
In Silvan Omerzu's puppets, his lucide creative genius comes into place. The puppets fill the exhibition area with immense presence and artistic content. They mostly consist of wood and are primarily designed for adult audience. The puppets are set up in a scene/installation and address us first and most of all with their materialistic immobility (except Automatons) as well as virtual statics. The internal tension and the association of liveliness is present in the sole material (wood), in which structure (growth rings of tree trunks) has visibly caught the time and growth of nature and time. The silent inner glance, which the authors chisel (with a dynamic stroke or elsewhere with a stroke which smoothens the material till extreme softness and tenderness), “gave breath” to a puppet, a face, a body. And just such inner tension can be the lever, taking the observer into his own inner world, entering the observers experience under surveillance and the alchemy of unique expressions and feelings happens. Only art with a capital letter is capable of encouraging just that.
Silvan Omerzu (1955) is a theatre director, an artist and one of the most recognisable Slovenian puppeteers. After studying at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, he started working in Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. In 1983, his professional journey led him to Prague, where he finished the specialization in puppet scenography and puppet design. After returning to Ljubljana, he developed a distinctive author’s poetics, which he most distinctively brought to life in Gledališče Konj, created together with director Jan Zakojšek. His shows were at first dionysically coloured, filled with black obscene humour. Main characters were Don Juan, King Ubu and Don Christobal. He put into dialogue the conficts between royalty and lowness, mistake and aesthetics, tradition and modernity. After the year 2000, his grotesque puppets turned into sophisticated ascetic figures, which induce inner ripening in a minimalistic style and elevated atmosphere, with their presence, asking themselves about never ending topics of life and death, art, divinity and creation.
Omerzu received fourteen international awards, twelve slovenian awards and an award of Peršeren fund in 2006. Besides puppeteering, Omerzu also got involved in painting, graphics, drawings, illustration, ceramics and poster design. He also experiments with different materials, such as wood, yarn and steel. This year, two of his shows ranked into the Biennial of Puppetry Artists of Slovenia: Dream of a Star (Puppet theatre Maribor) and Karl's Stories (Ljubljana puppet theatre).
Kindly invited to the exhibition venue in the basement of the Minoriti church of Puppet theatre Maribor on 7. September 2017, to the premiere of the puppet show Words from the house Karlstein (creator Silvan Omerzu). Along with the puppet show premiere, there will be an exhibition opening with work from his rich oeuvre. His “tears, tomb and puppets on wheelchairs” will be put on display.
ACCOMPANYING PROGRAM:
MARIBOR ART GALLERY (UGM)
Conversation with the artist / Silvan Omerzu
UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2
Friday, 25. August 2017, 18:30 (before the opening of the exhibition)
Guided by: Breda Kolar Sluga, UGM director
Kids creative workshop / Silvan Omerzu, drawings, puppets and automatons
Gathering point: UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2
Locations: UGM Studio and the exhibition venue in the basement of Minoriti Church
Saturday, 9. september 2017, 16:00
Guided by: Brigita Strnad, UGM senior curator and pedagogue + puppeteers
Collaboration of: Maribor Art Gallery, Puppet theatre Maribor and Konj (»Horse«) Puppet Theatre
Lecture / Omerzu's Puppet
UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2
Tuesday, September 19, 18:00
Held by: Blaž Lukan, dramaturg, theater publicist and critic
PUPPET THEATRE MARIBOR (LGM)
Silvan Omerzu, exhibition + premiere of the puppet show Words from house Karlstein
Exhibition place in the basement of Minoriti Church, Vojašniški Trg 2A + Puppet theatre Maribor Stage
Opening and the premiere: Thursday, 7. september 2017, 20:00
Opening hours of the exhibition place: an hour before and after the shows and during the working hours of
LGM's cash registry: monday - friday: 10:00 - 13:00, thursday: 15:00 - 18:00, saturday: 9:00 - 12:00
Repetitions of the puppet show Words from house Karlstein:
Friday, 8. September, 18:00 and 20:00 + Saturday, 9. September, 18:00 and 20:00
Biennial of Puppetry Artists of Slovenia (9th festival BLU): 13. september - 16. september 2017
KINDLY INVITED!
