David Maljkovic
06 Oct 2012 - 27 Jan 2013
DAVID MALJKOVIC
Sources In The Air
Curators: Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher
Assistant Curator: Nick Aikens
6 October 2012 – 27 January 2013
For Sources in the Air, David Maljkovic (Rijeka, Croatia, 1973) presents an overview of his practice from the last ten years. The spectres of modernism – its politics and aesthetics – loom over and inform this multi-faceted oeuvre consisting of sculpture, collage, painting, drawing, and architectural mises-en-scène. The exhibition focuses attention on the artist’s varied artistic strategies and experiences, as well as addressing and problematising the act of exhibition making itself. In this exhibition, we are encouraged to get lost and enjoy it!
Taken as a whole this will be the artist’s most comprehensive survey to date. Trained at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and now living in Zagreb, Maljkovic has exhibited extensively internationally.
While Sources in the Air presents an overview of the artist’s practice (including the Scene for New Heritage trilogy - an epic series of films, drawing and collages that is an important element of the Van Abbemuseum’s collection) the exhibition lends equal space to the radical new way Maljkovic has begun to conceive and execute exhibitions.
The artist has continually sought to create a new relationship (or even tension) between how we look at, recollect and understand the world around us. In earlier pieces, this was done through the lens of his native Croatia and its history as part of socialist Yugoslavia. Here, many of the artists, architects and avant-garde figures associated with the country’s alternative modernism, allowed Maljkovic to both reassess and reactivate their vision and politics. For Maljkovic, looking back to the past becomes a device to better understand the present. The desire to re-read and look again has come to play an increasingly important part in Maljkovic’s approach to his own work with the last two years marking a distinct departure in how the artist constructs the space for a viewer.
The series of installations at the Van Abbemuseum are staged as a subtle and elegant operation of disruption where the viewer is invited to go on a speculative journey into the space marked for art, experiencing a variety of visual and aural encounters. The artist will present atmospherically and architecturally charged installations to both house and interpret his own works, staging a series of encounters between viewer, artwork and the classic location of the Van Abbemuseum’s old building.
Sources in the Air: Publication
A major new publication, published by JRP Ringier, BALTIC, GAMeC and Van Abbemuseum will serve as the conceptual linchpin for this travelling exhibition. Designed by Mevis & van Deursen (Amsterdam), it will include a main essay by Anselm Franke with contributions from Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher (both Van Abbemuseum), Alessandro Rabottini (GAMeC), Alessandro Vincentelli (BALTIC), and Andrea Viliani (guest co-curator, GAMeC). The publication is edited by Nick Aikens (Van Abbemuseum).
You can order this publication in our webshop...
Mediation
Accompanying the exhibition is a floor plan which guides the viewer throughout the various scenarios and architectural settings constructed by the artist. A series of 'expert' tours from various disciplines including theatre, dance, architecture and psychology will run throughout the exhibition addressing the themes of getting lost, orientation and speculation. More informatie about the tours.
Co-production
Sources in the Air is a collaboration between the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England and GAMeC - Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo, Italy. Starting at the Van Abbemuseum, Sources in the Air will continue to BALTIC and GAMeC, having a distinctly different architectural form in each venue.
Sources In The Air
Curators: Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher
Assistant Curator: Nick Aikens
6 October 2012 – 27 January 2013
For Sources in the Air, David Maljkovic (Rijeka, Croatia, 1973) presents an overview of his practice from the last ten years. The spectres of modernism – its politics and aesthetics – loom over and inform this multi-faceted oeuvre consisting of sculpture, collage, painting, drawing, and architectural mises-en-scène. The exhibition focuses attention on the artist’s varied artistic strategies and experiences, as well as addressing and problematising the act of exhibition making itself. In this exhibition, we are encouraged to get lost and enjoy it!
Taken as a whole this will be the artist’s most comprehensive survey to date. Trained at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and now living in Zagreb, Maljkovic has exhibited extensively internationally.
While Sources in the Air presents an overview of the artist’s practice (including the Scene for New Heritage trilogy - an epic series of films, drawing and collages that is an important element of the Van Abbemuseum’s collection) the exhibition lends equal space to the radical new way Maljkovic has begun to conceive and execute exhibitions.
The artist has continually sought to create a new relationship (or even tension) between how we look at, recollect and understand the world around us. In earlier pieces, this was done through the lens of his native Croatia and its history as part of socialist Yugoslavia. Here, many of the artists, architects and avant-garde figures associated with the country’s alternative modernism, allowed Maljkovic to both reassess and reactivate their vision and politics. For Maljkovic, looking back to the past becomes a device to better understand the present. The desire to re-read and look again has come to play an increasingly important part in Maljkovic’s approach to his own work with the last two years marking a distinct departure in how the artist constructs the space for a viewer.
The series of installations at the Van Abbemuseum are staged as a subtle and elegant operation of disruption where the viewer is invited to go on a speculative journey into the space marked for art, experiencing a variety of visual and aural encounters. The artist will present atmospherically and architecturally charged installations to both house and interpret his own works, staging a series of encounters between viewer, artwork and the classic location of the Van Abbemuseum’s old building.
Sources in the Air: Publication
A major new publication, published by JRP Ringier, BALTIC, GAMeC and Van Abbemuseum will serve as the conceptual linchpin for this travelling exhibition. Designed by Mevis & van Deursen (Amsterdam), it will include a main essay by Anselm Franke with contributions from Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher (both Van Abbemuseum), Alessandro Rabottini (GAMeC), Alessandro Vincentelli (BALTIC), and Andrea Viliani (guest co-curator, GAMeC). The publication is edited by Nick Aikens (Van Abbemuseum).
You can order this publication in our webshop...
Mediation
Accompanying the exhibition is a floor plan which guides the viewer throughout the various scenarios and architectural settings constructed by the artist. A series of 'expert' tours from various disciplines including theatre, dance, architecture and psychology will run throughout the exhibition addressing the themes of getting lost, orientation and speculation. More informatie about the tours.
Co-production
Sources in the Air is a collaboration between the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England and GAMeC - Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo, Italy. Starting at the Van Abbemuseum, Sources in the Air will continue to BALTIC and GAMeC, having a distinctly different architectural form in each venue.