BOLOGNA.- On the occasion of
ART CITY Bologna 2023, the Collezioni Comunali d'Arte (Municipal Art Collection) will be hosting Craquelure. Pavo and me, solo show by Slaven Tolj. The exhibition, curated by Daniele Capra, consists of some fifteen sculptural and documentary artworks and the performance Bologna, February 2023, especially created for the Bologna museum, which will takeplace on Saturday 4 February 4 at 7 pm and Sunday 5 February at 11 am. The project is Tolj's first solo exhibition at an Italian public museum.
Craquelure. Pavo and me - whose works range from sculpture to photography,from performance to the site-specific intervention created for the Sala Urbana–takes a bird's-eye view of the Croatian artist's journey, highlighting his ability toposition himself as an interstitial element between inner, interpersonal andpolitical dynamics. Body art and conceptual art are at the core of Tolj’s research, whose work is fuelled by a persistent interaction with human and professional events experienced first hand. The artist has remained true to his practice, from his beginnings in the late 1980s to recent works attesting to the events following a stroke that undermined his linguistic abilities. Theexhibition, which takes the form of a condensed retrospective, is an intimate narrative unfolded through thepersonal and historical events that marked Tolj’s life, beginning with the tragic breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The show is dedicated to photographer Pavo Urban, a friend of the artist who died in the war in Dubrovnik on 6 December 1991. Two photographs by Urban, documenting the performance by Tolj Rosarium in 1988, are part of the exhibition.
In A tattoo of the logo of Rijeka's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka (2013),the artist gets the museum's logo tattooed on his shoulders - anaction performed right after being appointed director of the MMSU museum. This is both an intimate and political work: the artist demonstrates his personal dedication to his new institutional role, yet, being an artist himself, this performative action also aims to highlight how museums can turn into a brandand a yardstick of value of one's work.
In Community Spirit in Action (1998) Tolj performs in a Zagreb peep show together with a stripper, presenting his own body lying completely defenceless, covered by a cloth. The work sheds light on a somewhat paradoxical situation: the presence of a body-artist's body goes almost unnoticed, while a woman's body - although exploited and sexually objectified - is the subject sought and desired by the viewers' gaze.
The photograph Untitled (1997) bears witness to a historical event that occurred during the war in former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: the majestic chandeliers of St. Ignatius Church in Dubrovnik were removed to prevent them from falling on people due tobombing. The objects were thus replaced with simple industrial bulbs with no identity. In the performance Dubrovnik-Valencia-Dubrovnik (2003) Tolj remains shirtless after removing a dozen garments, each of which has a black button symbolizing a friend lost in the war. He then tears off one of the buttons and decides to sew it onto his own skin with needle and thread - as if it were a medal to be pinned to his chest. However, this gesture becomes a sign of mourning instead. a pain that leaves one naked, and from which one can no longer free oneself.
In Tolj's poetics the artwork is an element of mediation and relationship between the artist, his body and the context in which it originated. Through his ownpresence, by means of minimal actions conducted with his own body and by displacing small objects, Tolj highlights the cracks and breaks that life and history inflict on the fabric of our existence - like the craquelure that appears on the surface of oil paintings as time passes. Without rhetoric, with a scarce yet much needed language, the artist interrogates the viewer and invests him with an intense emotional charge, revealing with his works the immense rawness of reality.
The artistic practice of Slaven Tolj (Dubrovnik, HR, 1964) is the result of a deep inner excavation, in which elements of personal life and a lucid analysis of the socio-political context are fused. His works, characterized by essential interventions, span from performance to photography, from installation to sculpture made from found objects. Tolj has combined artistic activity with active work as a museum and institution director. He has exhibited and realized performances in museums and festivals such as: MSU Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (HR), MUMOK, Vienna (A), Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (H), Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, Ljubljana (SLO), 15. Biennale di Architettura, Venice, Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik (HR), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana(SLO), Documenta X, Kassel (D), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (S), ZAZ Festival of Performance Art in Motion, Tel Aviv (IL), MMSU, Rijeka (HR), Ernst Muzeum, Budapest (H), Performa, New York (USA). Tolj lives and works in Dubrovnik and Rijeka.
The exhibition is a project of Galerie Michaela Stock, Vienna, realised thanks to the support of Kontakt Collection, Vienna, in collaboration with Art Radionica Lazareti, Dubrovnik and Settore Musei Civici Bologna | Musei Civici d'Arte Antica.
Kontakt Collection is an independent non-profit association based in Vienna. Its purpose is the support and promotion of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Art.
