© Branka Cvjeticanin, La Strada, 2008 (video still)
Invisible Parcours
Cécile Azoulay | Branka Cvjeticanin
Curated by Katerina
Valdivia Bruch
The exhibition Invisible Parcours
explores ways of understanding the notions of landscape and space.
Spaces become important once inhabited or experienced. They are part of
our consciousness and our ways of understanding. But what about those
spaces which are imaginated and do not exist in reality, the ones which
are just part of our imagination?
We can associate issues
about identity, memory, community and emotions with recognizable
landscapes and imaginary spaces. For instance, human imagination is not
necessarily limited by the laws of physics or the limitations of
contemporary urban theory, as there are other ways of seeing and
feeling spaces. As we know, imagination makes us believe in other
possibilities of dealing with spaces and ways to express its
dimensions. How we can think about the use of space and landscape, how
they are formed and how they function are questions that may arise from
this exhibition.
Cécile Azoulay recreates in Staffa Island
an existing landscape, a volcanic rock formation in Scotland, and mixes
the real island with a fictional statement, in which a green ray
appears in the moment of sunset and is visible only for those people
who belong together. This work, based on Jules Verne´s novel The Green Ray, combines fictional elements from literature with real spatial environments. In Places, the artist also uses literature as a starting point and creates a book with about 1500 imaginary places and cities. In A Romance of Many Dimensions - based on the novel of Edwin A. Abbott which tells the story of a two dimensional world referred to as Flatland – the artist emphasizes the limits and dimensions of spaces and explores space in its possible geometric forms.
In the video Antartica,
real spaces slightly change their meaning by the apperance of an never
ending flying airplane on top of an old scientific base on Antarctica
in the early forties. Similarly to this, the work Eagle? refers to the
fact of the arrival of the man on the moon, but just shadows remember
us human occupancy.
With Semper Augustus,
the artist evokes the first economic bubble in history (Netherlands,
mid 17th century) by placing 242 tulips to represent the historial
evolution of the stock market statistics generated by flowers, actually
sick (white colour stripes), rare and therefore more expensive. The
sickness of the flower made speculation possible. The web www.semperaugustus.net presents an animation of the Semper Augustus tulip giving the DAX stock market health in real time on a daily basis.
Branka Cvjeticanin explores in Myopia
the natural landscape created by flowers and displays it as an
artificial setup. Her work is based on observation about objects and
matters of contemporary society, such as illusion and reality, history
and personal memory. A natural landscape can seduce us with its beauty.
We believe that is real, but if you observe more clearly, this illusion
of reality disappears once we get closer and see that this are fake
flowers, which are actually part of graveyards. This intimate space
usually filled with real flowers, candles and photographs is readapted
with fake everlasting flowers on porcelain clay.
In Branka's
words: That very new “illness” of our perception I’ve called it
“perceptive myopia” which can be “diagnosed” when our brain becomes too
lazy to overcome a first impression and therefore becomes sensitive for
specially tuned triggers which are seducing us by beauty and kitsch.
La Strada,
an impressive work about the setup of a museum in a highway, deals with
issues about the status of contemporary arts and its preservation in
closed spaces. It represents a highway museum with no walls, but land
and fields, open for those who cross it. By making it accessible
through a highway, La Strada
critisizes arts institutions and democratizes art for a bigger
audience. Highway as path, as point of departure and arrival means also
space for communication and discussion. We are pleased to show at
IAC-Berlin just one part of a two year long project. Branka Cvjeticanin
synthesizes the whole process in a photo/video installation, which
summarizes the negotiations with institutions and bureaucratic
structures in order to create the museum of the future. This highway
museum is still open to future possibilities of actual realization. Exhibition: May 20th - June 28th, 2008
Galerie IAC-Berlin
[English PDF]
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