Gregor Podnar

Mladen Stropnik

07 Oct - 06 Nov 2009

© Mladen Stropnik
Fukin ́hanging, 2009
video still
MLADEN STROPNIK

7.10. - 6.11.2009

Galerija Gregor Podnar / Association DUM is pleased to announce the opening of fuckin' hanging, a solo exhibition by Mladen Stropnik.

The exhibition fuckin' hanging brings together a selection of Stropnik’s earlier and more recent video works and drawings, created between 2004 and 2009.

Mladen Stropnik began his career investigating the extended field of painting, and more recently, since 2004, influenced by the punk rock music of the 1990s (the band Res Nullius) and the aesthetics of early underground music videos from the 1980s, he has developed an independent body of video works.
The figure of the artist with a masked face plays a leading role in Stropnik’s short narratives and depictions. Frames repeat themselves frequently, in manic excess, with scenes that are bizarre, in glowing colors, voyeuristic, sexual, humorous, sad, etc. The videos, which were made in close collaboration with musicians (Saša Lušič, Robert Jukič and Klemen Klinc) and artists (Nataša Skušek, Katja Skušek and Klemen Gorup), work as a kind of pictorial detached prism of the real as seen through Stropnik’s masked gaze.
His drawings and objects, similarly, represent very emotionally direct and powerful documents, only now without the figure of the artist.

Mladen Stropnik (b. 1977) lives and works in Ljubljana. In 2008, he received the OHO Award, which is presented to young artists in Slovenia by the P74 Center and Gallery in Ljubljana.

This project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
Special thanks to Moderna galerija Ljubljana