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Matej Andraž Vogrinčič
Škuc Bake Shop
August 6 – 22, 2009
You are kindly invited to attend the opening
of the exhibition on Thursday, 6 August
at 8 pm at Škuc Gallery.
With his site-specific installations, Matej
Andraž Vogrinčič narrates stories about the spaces in which
he creates. He always seeks to tap into the unique character
of the venue, which he then transforms and enriches with a
whole new dimension through his art. A white watering can is
the only colour not naturally present in a desert spectrum (Moon
Plain, 2002); a house is literally clad in its own
clothes (1993); a shovel symbolises one of the main
industries in Krasnoyarsk (Shovels, 2007); and a boat
tells how Liverpudlians used to spend their free time in the
early 20th century (Untitled (56 Boats),
2006). Vogrinčič is thus among those artists who use the
venue to define their objects so as to establish a
relationship of interdependence between them - the object
cannot function without the venue and the venue cannot
function without the object.
Another important component of Vogrinčič’s
installations, in addition to this reliance on a specific
venue, is temporariness. His installations are largely
conceived so as to include the perception of looking through
a camera lens, which somehow makes photography an integral
part of the artwork, i.e. a chronicle of art, not just a
record of a past event. Of course, it needs to be stressed
that experiencing an installation as opposed to photography
is quite different. However, neither enables the viewer to
experience a vital component of Vogrinčič’s work - the
creative process. The artist says that his works are created
through a creative process and never emerge completed at the
very beginning. The process thus co-shapes and defines an
artwork.
This is
what makes the Škuc Bake Shop project unique, as it enables
the viewer to manipulate the creative process of baking
bread in the gallery. The project is also Vogrinčič’s first
site-specific intervention in the gallery venue, and like
his previous projects, it is conceptually linked to the
features of the venue. Local residents from the Old City
Centre say that Škuc Gallery once housed a glassmakers and a
bakery.
Vogrinčič opted for the bakery, which was allegedly there
between the wars, as it enables him to manifest both the
formal and wider social components of his art. He says he
finds it easier to express himself as a baker than a
glassmaker. At the formal level, the dough enables the
artist to have contact with the material itself and the
production of the artistic ‘object’, its endless
multiplication, accommodation in the context of the venue
and, consequently, the construction of an installation.
Baking bread in a gallery also enables the viewer to engage
their sense of smell, which has largely been ignored in the
context of visual art. On the other hand, by baking bread in
the Gallery, the artist seeks to draw attention to the
vanishing culture of baking in Ljubljana’s Old City Centre.
Linking the history of the Gallery with
current issues in the wider cultural context is in itself a
new dimension which Matej Andraž Vogrinčič seeks to
establish in his work. The Škuc Bake Shop project does not
attempt to recreate a historical place in which the artist
intervenes, but to tell a story about a space that has not
yet been written.
Ingredients
Flour: type 500, type 850, type 1100, type
1250, 10kg buckwheat, 10kg corn, 5kg wholemeal
Senna Ziehplatte and Senna Back margarine
Jam
Walnut halves
Pumpkin seeds
Sesame
Ground poppy seeds
Flaxseed
Sunflower seed
Appliances and utensils
MIWE Aero 8.0604 TC oven
Diosna S 35 plus mixer
Rollex 250 croissant maker
Fortuna III/30 dough divider/rounder
Baker’s peel
Dough rising baskets
Curated by: Alenka Gregorič & Tevž Logar
Suported by: |
