Padiglione Slovenia

53a Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte - La Biennale di Venezia

Miha Štrukelj

x=0 / y=0

Interference in Process

http://www.slovenianpavilion.com

At the Venice Biennale Slovenia will be represented by a project from Miha Štrukelj, conceived as a total artwork and based on four thematic levels and media: painting, wall drawing, drawing and Lego picture. The exhibition deconstructs the picture plane with the aid of the grid as a structural and conceptual basis, where the painting is deconstructed and reconstituted through the disillusioned gaze of the subject. The themes of Štrukelj's artistic practice arise from a fascination with media-manipulated images and expand into the iconography of anonymous urban topography, and the isolated, quiet presence of the human figure. This approach is reflected in all the work, with the exception of the Lego-picture which portrays natural landscapes, a rare motif in Štrukelj's work.

Miha Štrukelj's work is based on researching and deconstructing the mechanism of perception, which he analyses with the aid of traditional representational media – painting and drawing – but so as to include a thoughtful and critical examination of the act of perception as the threshold of the individual's self-definition. Since the end of the1990s, his painting has examined critical events in recent human history: from the Chernobyl disaster and the technologically sophisticated view of the distant phantom scenery of the Gulf War, which played itself out before the eyes of the world in the blurred reality of infotainment, to another climax of human self-destruction – New York's Ground Zero. Meanwhile, Štrukelj's canvases, drawings, drawing interventions on walls and Lego brick jigsaw puzzle images are home to motifs from city centres, anonymous and seemingly disparate details of cityscapes, crossroads, bridges and buildings, which create a different, parallel, more intimate and personal cartography of contemporary reality, formed by momentary glimpses, 'snapshots', where the human figure is only accidental.

The Venice project is a combination of approaches characteristic of Štrukelj's output in the last few years, its most prominent segment being wall drawing. He has used the wall as a support medium only three times before Venice. The support medium is different than in older works while the content and application of fragmented images remain the same. However, in the latest mural, the thematic and formal starting points are taken one step further – while the urban environment is again more abstract and devoid of human figures, the individual returns, but in a very subtle way.

Miha Štrukelj (1973, Ljubljana):
Works primarily in painting, and has also focused on drawing and site-specific work in the last two years. He examines the process and boundaries of painting and explores urban environments and their perception. He has recently received two awards – the Pollock-Krasner Grant 2008 and the Henkel Drawing Award 2008. He has also been selected for 'Slovenian Art 1995–2005' and 'Seven Sins; Ljubljana–Moscow' at the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, and various other national and international shows. His work is included in the volume 'Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting' (Phaidon). He is currently artist-in-residence at ISCP in New York.

The exhibition x=0 / y=0, Interference in Process is organised by Škuc Gallery with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.

Commissioner: Aleksander Bassin
Deputy Commissioner: Tevž Logar
Curator: Alenka Gregoric
Co-curator: Noel Kelly
Venue: Galleria A+A?Slovenian Public Exhibition Centre
San Marco 3073, Venezia 30124?
How to reach us:
Line 2
Boat stop: San Samuele
Opening hours
June (every day 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.)
July–November (Tuesday–Sunday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.)
Professional Preview Days: 3–6 June 2009
Pavilion opening: Friday, 5 June 2009 at 7 p.m.
For additional information, please check: http://www.slovenianpavilion.com
For press inquires related to this announcement and the project, please contact Alenka Gregoric, Škuc Gallery