Underscore

As part of the programme of Fotopub 2017, we organised an exhibition by the Swiss artistic duo at the abandoned gas station of Tivolska 44, Ljubljana, from 30 June – 14 July, 2017.

The idiom On the other hand is described interestingly in the Cambridge Dictionary with the phrase “in a way that is different from the first thing you mentioned”. On the occasion of their first exhibition in Slovenia, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs propose a reshuffle of works drawn from their archive, a basin of visual materials belonging to different series, mostly produced in the course of long journeys on the road and often subject to manipulations, interventions and performative acts. Deprived of their original meaning, the photographs and videos open themselves up to engage in a brand new dialogue with the visitors and the venue. The show is the result of the artist’s new travel without moving.

The abandoned gas station provided suggestions and inspirations, taking on an active and fundamental role in shaping the exhibition, which can be properly defined as a site-specific project. One born out of a mutual exchange between the architecture and the artists’ visual imagery. Conceived as an experiment, the show presents itself as a laboratory, an open discourse, rather than a fixed and conclusive statement. Debris, tires, electric poles, animals, sources of light are just few of the elements which flow and chase each other, invading and enveloping the walls, along the three floors of the venue. By means of new associations and arrangements, Onorato and Krebs break down the narrative, dismantle the content, leaving room to a collision of patterns and shapes, reacting to each other both harmoniously and stridently.

Despite the prominence of the photographic image, the basement adds a fundamental layer to the reading of the work: wooden and concrete undefined and unfinished objects are placed in the space’s original cupboards, which turn into display cases to the newly ennobled relics. Seemingly found objects, impossible to ascribe to a specific context, they are no different from the sculptural presences depicted in the images and videos, be them products of human construction or spontaneous tangles of branches and rocks. They belonged to nowhere and no one. Here, strengthened by an unprecedented dignity, they offer themselves to your eyes in all their beauty.

“Untitled” (Face in the Dirt),1991