Luiza Margan, Virtual farming: Using Sense, video still, 2009
Luiza Margan’s solo exhibition is the first artist within the YVAA (Young Visual Artists Awards) international network, also including the Bulgarian BAZA Award, to have an exhibition in Sofia. In 2007 Luiza Margan was awarded the “OHO” award for best young visual artist, the Slovenian equivalent of the award.
With her works Luiza Margan builds unusual logical connections between modern life and the life of artworks themselves. They are not mere installations occupying some exhibition space, but rather seem to be “inhabiting” that space. Challenging the belief that a work of art is “nonhuman” or “non-living”, she transforms objects and their surrounding environment into animate entities. Her exhibitions feature plants and living organisms, a house’s breathing roof, a breathing basement or fireplace, which “cannot find its place”. All this is usually related to the social environment, the places of origin or places to stay, which do not always have the same value or meaning.
The Bulgarian-Croatian artist created new works for her exhibition in Sofia. They were inspired by the idea of hereditary land as a symbolic category, namely land as a symbol of social identity, a consumer product, potential capital or something of personal value. The idea was triggered by the relationship between the artist’s art education and her Bulgarian roots. Her family was able to reclaim their land after the fall of the communist bloc, thus ensuring funding that helped Luiza Margan further her professional career. According to her interpretation, this transformation of values is one of the reasons why she became an artist. Featuring objects, installations, photographs, drawings, videos and stop motion animation, the exhibition comments upon both political and personal history. The artist brings up the issue of the contrast and relationship between material and intellectual values. The former precede the birth of art in a national economy or in the life of almost any artist, yet only their proper management results in a genuine artistic product.
Luiza Margan was born in 1983 in Rijeka, Croatia. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2006. She studied at the University for Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria over the period 2005-2006. Between 2006 and 2009 she had solo exhibitions in Vienna, Ljubljana, Velenje and Maribor (Slovenia). In 2007 she was awarded the “OHO” award for best young visual artist, Ljubljana, Slovenia, which is the Slovenian equivalent of Bulgaria’s BAZA Award. She works in the fields of painting, drawing, installation, site-specific installation, video and video animation. Some of her work has been created jointly with Miha Presker. She lives and works in Vienna.
Luiza Margan, Mouth on mouth, object, transparent glass pots, 2009
Luiza Margan, Virtual farming: Food for Unknown, stop motion video still, 2009
C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) 06 - 10 October 2009
C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience)
6 – 10 October 2009
robbinschilds + A.L. Steiner with AJ Blandford
curated by Amy Mackie, New Museum, New York
Installation view, C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) at the New Museum, 2008
Courtesy the artists and Taxter + Spengemann. Installation photo by Benoit Pailley
SCHEDULE October 6
6pm / Vaska Emanouilova Gallery
-Screening of C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience), Part 1 (2007)
6:30pm
-Panel discussion with New York-based artists A.L. Steiner, robbinschilds (Layla Childs and Sonya Robbins), AJ Blandford, and curator Amy Mackie October 7 and 10
(exact dates, times, and locations to be announced at panel discussion)
-Interventions (improvised performances) by robbinschilds throughout the city of Sofia October 8
6pm - 8:30pm / Begins in Zaimov Park and concludes at Seasons Gallery
-Performance of C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) November 6 - December 6, 2009
Meeting Point Platform, Vaska Emanouilova Gallery
-Video installation of C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience)
What is C.L.U.E.?
C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) is a collaboration between New York-based artists A.L.Steiner, robbinschilds (Layla Childs and Sonya Robbins), and AJ Blandford.
In the process of making their work, the artists visit locales ranging from desolate desert landscapes to darkened parking lots, responding to the environment and capturing the results of these interactions.The subsequent videos are choreographed patterns, crafted through the use of carefully timed jump cuts that divide the piece into discrete, color-coded sections. In live performances robbinschilds are costumed in rainbow hues as they perform a series of movements to an instrumental rock score by the Seattle-based band Kinski.
Like a living organism, C.L.U.E. adapts to the space it temporarily occupies. In a previous iteration at the New Museum, New York in 2008, the artists responded to the architecture of the museum through original performances and interventions by robbinschilds, a multichannel installation of C.L.U.E., and a nightly outdoor projection of C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience), Part I (2007).
The flexible nature of this project embraces multiple arrangements of its parts, allowing the environment to inform its presentation. In Sofia, the artists will present a number of events October 6 -10, 2009 including a screening of C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience), Part 1 (2007) a panel discussion about the project, several performances throughout the city, as well as a new video installation, which will be presented in the frames of Meeting Point Platform at Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, 6 November – 6 December, 2009.
ARTIST BIOS:
robbinschilds (Layla Childs and Sonya Robbins) have presented choreographed and video works since 2003 that explore the relationship between architecture and movement in venues including The Kitchen (New York, NY), P.S. 122 (New York, NY) the New Museum (New York, NY), Marfa Ballroom (Marfa, Texas), the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, Spain), and the Time Based Art Festival organized by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, Oregon). In 2009, robbinschilds was commissioned to create original choreography for David Byrne’s world concert tour and also premiered a new evening-length work, Sonya and Layla Go Camping, at The Kitchen. This fall, robbinschilds will complete a month-long residency in New Zealand where they will begin work on a new film and performance project, ¡Bottoms Up! robbinschilds is based in Brooklyn, NY.
www.robbinschilds.com
A.L. Steiner uses constructions of photography, video, installation, performance, and curatorial work as seductive tropes channeled through the sensibility of a cynical queer eco-feminist androgyne. She is a collective member of Chicks on Speed and a founding member of the activist group Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.). Steiner is based in Brooklyn, NY and is represented by Taxter & Spengemann, New York.
www.wageforwork.com
AJ Blandford is a artist and constructor. She works with individuals, architects, artists, and organizations to help create and build environments, sets, and artworks. Blandford is based in Brooklyn, NY.
CURATOR BIO:
Amy Mackie is a curatorial assistant at the New Museum, New York where she curated The Deeper You Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes, a site-specific installation by Rigo 23, C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) a project by A.L. Steiner + robbinschilds, and co-curated Jeremy Deller’s It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq. In 2005 she curated Open, an exhibition in conjunction with Paul Ramírez Jonas’ public art commission, Taylor Square in Cambridge, MA. She has organized exhibitions or worked on projects with a number of mid-career and emerging artists including Ana Prvacki, Andrea Geyer, Mariam Ghani, and the New York-based collectives LTTR and Ridykeulous. She is the recipient of a 2009 CEC Artslink Grant.
Produced by Stephan Stoyanov (Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York), assistant Desislava Trifonova
Venues: Zaimov Park, Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Seasons Gallery – Sofia, Bulgaria
Sponsor CEC Artslink / Supported by Societe Generale as part of Societe Generale Експресбанк 10 years anniversary
Performance still, C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience), New Museum (2008)
Courtesy the artists and Taxter + Spengemann. Photo by Kevin Dohn
Still from C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) (2007)
Courtesy the artists and Taxter & Spengemann, Photo by A.L. Steiner
Still from C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) (2007)
Courtesy the artists and Taxter & Spengemann. Photo by A.L. Steiner
