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, Grass Monochromes, 11 paintings mounted on nuts, size variable, 2009

Luiza Margan, Garden, video still, video, 2009

Luiza Margan, Mouth on mouth, object, transparent glass pots, 2009

Luiza Margan, Virtual farming: Food for Unknown, stop motion video still, 2009