14.1. – 26.1.2014.
Opening of the exhibition will be on January 14th 2014 at 8 pm.
Home of Croatian Visual Artists
Trg žrtava fašizma 16, 10000 Zagreb
Working Hours:
Wednesday – Friday 11 am – 7 pm
Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Closed on Monday, Tuesday and holiday.
ARTISTS
Ana Elizabet
Sandra Fockenberger
Paul Horn
Hund&Horn
Ursula Hübner
Alfred Lenz
Moritz M. Polansky
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DAILY STRUGGLE exhibits works that deal with problems that people face in everyday life.
It is less concerned with the “struggle to survive” or the big questions, such as the deeper meaning of all things or long term career strategies, and more with the sum of small events or difficulties we try to overcome daily, such as: “How will I get out of bed? Why is the clutch sticking? How will I take out the trash without ripping the bag?”
These actions can take place on an individual level; we see both people and things in actual situations, which are far from perfect. It seems that both objects and persons involved in this follow an unwritten command or dynamic, with no outwardly visible obligation or necessity.
At the exhibition, these actions can be materialised in such way that the products of companies and retailers that are severely hit by the economic downturn can find their users.
It transpires that attempted improvised semi-solutions and failures can be more human and rewarding than the routine.
DAILY STRUGGLE zeigt Arbeiten, die sich mit Problemen beschäftigen, mit denen Menschen im Alltag konfrontiert sind.
Dabei geht es weniger um den „Kampf ums Überleben“ oder um die großen Fragen, die man sich im Laufe des Lebens stellt, wie die Frage nach dem tieferen Sinn hinter allen Dingen oder nach der langfristigen Karrierestrategie. Es geht mehr um die Summe aller kleinen Ereignisse und Schwierigkeiten, die man von Tag zu Tag zu lösen hat; z.B.: wie schaffe ich es aus dem Bett? Warum klemmt die Kupplung? Wie bringe ich den Müll runter ohne dass der Sack zerreisst?
Diese Verrichtungen können auf individueller Ebene stattfinden, und man sieht Dinge und Menschen in Situationen, die man alles andere als perfekt nennen könnte. Oder die Objekte und Personen, die darin verwickelt sind, scheinen einem ungeschriebenen Gebot oder einer Dynamik zu folgen, ohne von außen sichtbare Verpflichtung oder Notwendigkeit dazu.
Diese Verrichtungen können sich in der Ausstellung aber auch dahingehend materialisieren, dass Produkte von Firmen oder Gewerben Verwendung finden, die von den wirtschaftlichen Umbrüchen stark gebeutelt wurden.
Es zeigt sich, dass Versuche, improvisierte Zwischenlösungen und Misserfolge manchmal menschlicher und bereichernder sind als perfekte Routine.
HANA MILETIĆ
SINT-ANNABOS – FOREST SAINTE-ANNE
2.10. – 13.10.2013.
Opening of the exhibition on October 2nd 2013 at 7 pm.
PM GALLERY
Trg žrtava fašizma 16
10000 Zagreb
Working hours
Wednesday – Friday 11 am – 7 pm
Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays.
In this series, Hana Miletić explores and documents the “Sint-Annabos” (“Forest-Sainte-Anne”), a small forest close to the city of Antwerp in Belgium that is threatened by the construction of a highway bridge. Miletić has photographed the trees of the forest in an isolated, individuated way, capturing their shapes in the midst of the night, as if she wanted to make a kind of clandestine portrait of each one of them.
The photographs are printed using the Fresson-technique, a carbon printing technique that was used in the early days of photography. The process involves natural carbon extracted from burned organic material that is deposited on the paper in order to render the picture. Miletić’ photographs of the Forest-Sainte-Anne thus suggest, in a way, a potential for re-incarnation of the trees threatened by abolition. Moreover, the dramatic effect of the Fresson printing technique grants a deep and dark image quality, creating an almost mystical atmosphere inhabiting the photographs.
The selection of photographs presented here does not only document the trees of the Forest-Sainte-Anne in a typological fashion, it also attempts to reinstall a sense of mystery and uncanniness in the experience of the European forest at large: the photographs remind the fact that once, long before modernity disenchanted the forest as a place of leisure and recreation, it was considered an impenetrable place inhabited by wolfs, witches and burglars.
Along with this project of re-enchantment, Miletić also exhibits remnants of the protests by the environmental NGO Ademloos (Breathless) who protests against the destruction of the forest. Their banners and slogans become thus not only politically concerned cries for environmental awareness, but are transformed in objects that call for the preservation and cultivation of zones of secrecy and danger in Europe’s engineered, suburban landscape.
Gawan Fagard