I’ve added some pics of the new works I made for …of bread, wine, cars, security and peace at Kunsthalle Wien, which opened on 8th March 2020. You can see more images here.
I’ve added some pics of the new works I made for …of bread, wine, cars, security and peace at Kunsthalle Wien, which opened on 8th March 2020. You can see more images here.
I’ve been in Vienna since last week, making new work for a show at Kunsthalle Vienna, which opens on Sunday, 8th March. It’s been super intense and I have one more day left of installing. Will post more info and pics after it’s all done!
In the meantime, here’s an invite for the opening:
For Infinite Distance, 2011 and Overhang Table, 2018 – amongst works of mine shown by GAEP Gallery at ARCOmadrid, opening tomorrow. Come visit us in Booth 9F16.
.
ARCOmadrid 2020
26th February – 1st March
.
GAEP Gallery, Booth 9F16
with
Felipe Cohen, Vlatka Horvat, Marilena Preda Sanc, Ignacio Uriarte
.
Here’s a preview:
https://www.artsy.net/show/gaep-gaep-at-arcomadrid-2020
Tonight at 6pm Tim Etchells and I are doing a talk at Millennium Gallery in Sheffield about our collaborative work No Contextual Information – a series of 35 photos which is now in the permanent collection of Museums Sheffield.
Part of Art Talks with Art Fund.
The brochure for Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen festival arrived in the post yesterday, which makes it very real that this is happening!
Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done, my durational performance commissioned by the festival, will premiere on 22 May 2020, 6-10pm in the incredible 70m-long baroque gallery on the grounds of Hannover’s Herrenhausen royal gardens.
Here’s the press blurb:
In Vlatka Horvat’s Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done, a group of six performers travel back and forth on a long narrow track, negotiating a landscape of detritus, wooden planks, sticks, fabric scraps, and various broken objects.
Part comical relay race, part surreal lo-fi physics experiment, and part obstacle course, the piece ebbs and flows through the four hours of its duration, the performers’ journeys at times aided, and at other times hindered by the objects and materials they carry with them.
Set to a live improvised musical score that augments and contradicts the rhythms of the performance itself, Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done is an unruly choreography of fabulous inventiveness, humour and play, with occasional glimpses of violence – a melee of objects and bodies dragging, pulling, sliding, and jumping.
The performers’ movement shifts between being energetic and competitive, and being reluctant or even resigned. They keep moving forward nonetheless, then return to their starting line again, determined to fight on and start over in a different way. Through the course of this game – with its rules warping, changing and disintegrating over time – both the performers’ moving bodies and the objects they work with are revealed in a new light. Indeed, as the performers continually reinvent both their journeys and their relation to the items they use, a sense of radical imagination is always at hand, through which everyday objects and materials are temporarily transformed into vehicles, props, crutches, vessels, shoes, attachments for the body and even additional body parts.
In its determined exploration of progress and stuckness, persistence and creativity, Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done speaks of human perseverance and resilience, of the need to start over, and of the drive people feel to keep going against all odds. Invoking the liberatory potential and the sheer exhaustion inherent in human movement, the work offers hints of historical dance marathons, echoes of the processes of migration and displacement, and a sense – underneath everything – of a human impulse to keep moving just to stay alive.
—
Credits:
Conceived and directed by Vlatka Horvat
Created with and performed by: Seke Chimutengwende, Neil Callaghan, Wendy Houstoun, Paul Hughes, Lucy Suggate, Rohanne Udall
Live music: Hahn Rowe
A commission and co-production by KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen Hannover
A production of Vlatka Horvat / unstable objects
Here are the shows I’m currently in:
—
10 Dec – 23 Dec 2019
I’ll open the door straight, dead straight into the fire
Curated by WHW
Galerija Nova, Zagreb, Croati
—
9 Sept 2019 – 9 Feb 2020
What Time is It?
Curated by Emre Baykal and Eda Berkmen
&
9 Sept 2019 – 8 March 2020
Words Are Very Unnecessary
Curated by Selen AnsenBoth of the above shows are at:Vehbi Koç Foundation – Arter Collection
ARTER, Istanbul, Turkey
—
Recent Acquisitions: No Contextual Information
A collaboration with Tim Etchells
Graves Gallery, Museums Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Several of my works that are in the Arter Collection, a subsidiary of the Vehbi Koç Foundation, are included in the inaugural exhibitions at the new ARTER building, opening its doors on 13th September 2019, with previews on 10/11/12th September.
—
9 Sept 2019 – 9 Feb 2020
What Time is It?
Curated by Emre Baykal and Eda Berkmen
A show looking at memory in relation to home, objects, archives, history, archeology, land, borders, migration and representation – includes four works from my The Past is Another Country series.
—
9 Sept 2019 – 8 March 2020
Words Are Very Unnecessary
Curated by Selen Ansen
A show revolving around ‘gesture’ and ‘remains’, focusing on works that highlight process-based practices and approaches. Includes several works from my Frame Paintings series.
Both shows are at:
Vehbi Koç Foundation – Arter Collection
ARTER, Istanbul, Turkey
Other shows currently on:
—
Until 13 September
I’ll open the door straight, dead straight into the fire
a group show curated by WHW
State of Concept, Athens
—
Ongoing
Recent Acquisitions: No Contextual Information
a collaboration with Tim Etchells
Graves Gallery, Museums Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
I’m in Chicago (2nd time in as many months) working on a new solo performance, Third Hand, which will open on the 4th of June 2019 at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Performances are
June 4th/5th/6th at 7pm
in the Sidney R Yates Gallery, on the 4th floor of the Chicago Cultural Center (Randolph Street side).
No booking required and entrance is free – the piece is supported by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) as part of the exhibition goat island archive – we have discovered the performance by making it.
—
More details about the piece are in the Projects section here.
This is the spectacular Yates Gallery where the piece will be performed:
Opening tonight, 17 May at 7.30 at State of Concept in Athens
“I’ll open the door straight, dead straight into the fire”
A group show curated by WHW / What, How and for Whom with some amazing work looking at the figure of the partisan woman – includes my rarely shown video ‘Oaths and Partisan Songs from Memory’ from 2002.
With
Marwa Arsanios, Lela Čermak, Dora Economou, Vlatka Horvat, Yota Ioannidou, Sanja Iveković, Adela Jušić, Gülsün Karamustafa, Rajkamal Kahlon, Theo Prodromidis, Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović, Mujeres Públicas, Želimir Žilnik
State of Concept, Mpotsari Tousa 19, Athina 117 41, Greece
From the press release:
The exhibition “I’ll open the door straight, dead straight into the fire” curated by collective What, How and for Whom / WHW starts from the figure of women partisans in intertwined histories of Yugoslav and Greek anti-fascist struggle and postwar constellation of Cold War. It situates these histories in relation to various liberation and anti-colonial struggles, and a contemporary line of feminist demands for total social alternative. The brave and uncompromising quote in its title is taken from a poem “May 25th” (1978) by poet, actress and militant anarchist Katerina Gogou (1940–93).
The exhibition presents episodes and cases of documentary research along diverse artistic works that look at contributions of women in building an egalitarian and just world system, often lost in dominant heroic narratives of anti-fascist struggles and leftist rhetoric. I’ll open the door straight, dead straight into the fire asks who are the partisan women of today and tries to join various voices and approaches opposing the current conditions of re-traditionalization, enforcement of patriarchy and devastating reproduction of capitalist growth.
Supporting Objects, my recent solo show at Eastwards Prospectus in Bucharest, which was on view 15 December 2018 – 15 February 2019, is reviewed in the April 2019 print issue of Artforum. I’m grateful to Daria Ghiu for a thoughtful reading of my work.
The online version of the print issue requires a password – if you are a subscriber you can read the full review here: https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201904/vlatka-horvat-79096
For those who dont subscribe, here’s a jpg:
Documentation of the show can be seen in the Projects section here.
Lots going on at the moment.
I’m in Chicago, on a residency at the Graham Foundation, where I’m working on a new performance which will premiere in June at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Titled Third Hand, the piece is a commission by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) as part of the exhibition goat island archive – we have discovered the performance by making it. The piece will open at the Chicago Cultural Center on 4th June 2019. More info about the project in the Projects section here.
A work-in-progress showing of the piece will be on 4th April 2019 at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in Chicago, part of IN>TIME Performance festival.
I’ve been developing the piece with the artist Michael Thomas, a co-founder of the Chicago-based collaborative group Lucky Pierre which makes work across writing, performance, education, activism, and visual forms. Michael and I are will be performing the piece together.
—
Meanwhile, several exhibitions featuring my work are opening elsewhere:
15 March – ongoing
Recent Acquisitions: No Contextual Information – a collaboration with Tim Etchells
Graves Gallery, Museums Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
1 April – 18 May
Loose Ends – a group show (Vlatka Horvat, Istvan Ist Huzjan, Sophie Ko, Dino Zrnec), curated by Branka Bencic
Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea, Milan, Italy
5-7 April
MiArt – booth of Eastwards Prospectus / gaep gallery, Bucharest
My first solo show at Eastwards Prospectus in Bucharest opened this past Saturday and is on until 9th February 2019. Titled Supporting Objects, the show spans both floors of the gallery’s 19th century villa.
It’s a really nice show – even if I say so myself! – happy for such a good way to end the year.
Some images of the show are in the Projects section here.
Vlatka Horvat: Supporting Objects
at Eastwards Prospectus, Bucharest
15 December 2018 – 9 February 2019
I’m taking part in Strong Language, part of Off the Shelf festival in Sheffield. Curated by Tim Etchells, Strong Language takes place over three days – 12-14 October – and includes readings, performances, projections, installations, and discussions by and with a fantastic group of writers, artists, and publishers.
Last night at Site Gallery, I read a new short story of mine, alongside readings from Tim, M John Harrison, Courttia Newland and Tony White. Alongside the live events, my new work In Eyes and Hands – a series of text projections – is being projected large scale onto the side of Sheffield’s Graves Gallery on Tudor Square. The work is on 8-10pm.
In Eyes and Hands summons human experiences, conditions, and states of mind via a collection of commonplace idioms featuring objects, animals, and elements of nature placed inside, on top of, or around, various parts of the human body. Creating a picture of humanity that shifts between the comical, the grotesque, and the poetic, the text is a surprising and playful compendium that moves from ’time on your hands’ and ‘frog in your throat’ to ‘hat in your hand’ and ‘wool over your eyes.’ As the work unfolds, the phrases are remixed to create a nonsensical list of images which re-imagine the body and its relation to the physical world.
Here are some phone pics from last night:
Very happy that my work at Sunday Art Fair got highlighted in artnet and in Financial Times – though I wouldn’t quite say that I got ‘stranded’ or ‘trapped’ in the US!
I’m showing in Sunday Art Fair with my Milano gallery, Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea, in a 2-person booth with Florian Roithmayr. Florian’s work is gorgeous, made via a fascinating set of processes, and with sharp thinking behind it. I’m completely in love with his recent works, some of which will be on view at the fair.
The gallery describes our pairing thus: Although embracing different languages, these two artists share a set of movements, gestures and strategies defining their respective practices, both visually and conceptually. They both explore reciprocities between positive and negative, cavity and volume, absence and presence, subject and context, therefore embodying a similar tension towards binary configurations and possibilities.
Sounds good to me.
—
The Preview is on Thursday, 4th October, 12-6pm and that eveing the fair is on until 10pm. After that, the opening hours are Friday and Saturday 12-8pm and Sunday 12-6.
If you’re in London, do stop by and say hi. We’re in booth 15.
—
Some works I’m showing can be seen here and here and here.
And here are some booth shots:
I’m taking part in the 2nd Industrial Art Biennial taking place across several cities and towns in Istria: in Labin, Raša, Pula, Vodnjan, and Rijeka. The biennial – curated by the Zagreb-based curatorial collective WHW – is organized by Labin Art Express XXI, MMSU – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, and the Archaeological Museum of Istria in Pula, and is part of Rijeka European Capital of Culture 2020. Titled On the Shoulders of Fallen Giants, the biennial takes the Istrian peninsula in Croatia as its starting point – a region marked by geographic and historic specificities and a place on the crossroads of empires, from the Greek, Roman, Venetian, Austro-Hungarian, French and Italian, to Yugoslav socialism.
You can read the press release and the full artist list on e-flux (in English) and on the biennial site (in Croatian).
The schedule of openings is as follows:
Thursday 19.07. at 8pm – Apoteka, Vodnjan
Friday, 20.07. at 12noon – Pula
Friday, 20.07. at 6pm – Raša
Friday, 20.07. at 9pm – Labin
Saturday, 21.07. at 8pm – MMSU, Rijeka
—
I’m presenting two works: a series of photographs titled Monuments, which will be included in the section of the exhibition at MMSU Rijeka; and an all-day performance titled Who Come to Stand, at the entrance to the shipyard 3.Maj, Liburnijska 3, Rijeka.
The performance will take place on Saturday, 21st July, 12noon-8pm and everyone who wants to take part is welcome to join.
Scroll down for details.
In the 1965 statue at the entrance to the shipyard 3. Maj, a larger-than-life male figure cradles a model ship, watching over it in a gesture of profound attention, care, and pride. The man and the ship – a labourer-as-maker and the thing he made – mark the long-standing relation between people and the sea, humankind’s search for agency over natural forces, and its ability to build machines that conquer distance. Standing tall on the side of the road, with his head partially covered by the crown of a tree, the statue both celebrates and memorialises – and in current context also mourns – the industrial heritage of shipbuilding and seafaring, the work of the port, and the labour of the hands.
Installed on the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Rijeka, the statue – work of the Rijeka-born sculptor Vinko Matković – stands next to the entrance of the shipyard. In a gesture of solidarity with the statue, artist Vlatka Horvat organises a performance in the form of a vigil, an action of joining the statue’s inanimate figure and standing with him holding other things worthy of being looked after, or celebrated.
Horvat invites artists and residents of Rijeka to join her at the statue, with an object they want to watch over, take care of, or magnify – a work tool perhaps, a personal item, a photograph, an item of clothing, a thing they made. Objects people might choose to hold alongside the man holding the ship might reflect one’s work and pride in work. Or they might speak of personal narrative or social change; they might speak of things lost, of lives lost, of memories that persist, or of hopes for the future. They can be objects of actual importance or significance, or metaphorical / symbolic objects that in some way stand for the thing a person may want to recognise, bring public focus to, or simply mark.
The task of the performance is to gather in a silent action on the side of the road – to stand there with something of personal or social value. A testament to persistence, perseverance, and to not standing down, Who Come to Stand creates a fragile human scale vigil in the shadow of the statue. The action of holding something becomes here a symbolic act of holding onto something – an actual object, an idea it encapsulates, a sentiment it evokes – as a quiet acknowledgment of things that survive; whether in material form, in memory, or in spirit.
Practical Notes
Croatia is playing England in the World Cup semi-finals tonight. I’ve been seeing posts on twitter by young English people pondering how last time England got this far in the World Cup, Croatia didn’t exist. ‘Architecture in Yugoslavia’ exhibition opened last night at MoMA. Several of my friends were there, all born in Yugoslavia and all now from different countries. I’m wondering if the ambassadors of all of our new countries were at the opening, all lined up for a photo opp, celebrating the design of a country they all used to be from. I’m thinking of my niece and nephew and young people of their generation, and how small these places they are from are. I’m writing invitation letters to people to join me in an action in a week’s time, where I will stand next to a 1965 statue of a man holding a ship in front of the now pretty-much-destroyed shipyard in Rijeka. I’m asking people to join me standing there, holding something that’s important, in solidarity with the stone statue. Srebrenica happened on today’s date 23 years ago. Pompeo, Trump’s Secretary of State, issued a letter of support praising tolerance and prosperity everywhere and for all, and saying we must “work harder to strengthen democratic institutions” so that terrible things wouldnt happen any more. And I’m sitting here, thinking about these things – in English, and writing, and then not writing any more, but crying, and not thinking any more, but saying out loud, into an empty room and my sunny London garden, pička im materina.
I have work in several shows that are currently running:
—
CUT: Collage in Central and Eastern European Practices at MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art. Zagreb, Croatia.
Curated by Branka Benčić and Tihomir Milovac.
05 June – 14 August 2018
I’m showing works from several series: Hybrids, The Past is Another Country, and Up in Arms.
—
Smart Nature at hase29 Space for Contemporary Art. Osnabrück, Germany.
Curated by Michael Kröger, Elisabeth Lumme, and Tim Roßberg.
09 June – 11 August 2018
I’m showing a floor piece titled Always Greener, which was a commission by MARTa Herford Museum in 2016.
—
And the Venice Architecture Biennale continues until 25 November 2018.
My work, a series of drawings titled To Still the Eye is part of Cloud Pergola: Architecture of Hospitality, a collaborative project for the Pavilion of Croatia at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition. Venice, Italy.
Some installation images are in the projects section here.
I have been working hard on two exciting things coming up this weekend/next week.
(Gods of Schedule Making were not kind to me when planning these two events in the same week…)
–
I’m off to Venice tomorrow to install my work for the Croatian Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennial, then to Hannover on Friday for a 3-day durational performance, part of KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen festival. And then – bruises and all! – back to Venice for the previews and the opening of the Biennale.
Some info on both projects below.
Venice Architecture Biennale 2018
Cloud Pergola: The Architecture of Hospitality
Pavilion of Croatia at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition
Exhibition dates: 26 May 26 – 26 November 2018
Preview: 24 -25 May 2018
Opening: Friday, 25 May, 1.30 PM
Cloud Pergola: The Architecture of Hospitality at the Croatian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 is a collaborative project crossing the boundaries of architecture, art, engineering, robotic fabrication, and computational modelling.
Conceived by the pavilion curator, Bruno Juričić, with curatorial advice from Branka Benčić, Cloud Pergola brings together three distinct propositions: a pergola structure titled Cloud Drawing by Alisa Andrašek in collaboration with Bruno Juričić, a series of acrylic drawings titled To Still the Eye by Vlatka Horvat, and a sound work Ephemeral Garden by Maja Kuzmanović & FoAM.
—
About To Still the Eye:
To Still the Eye is a series of drawings made by bare feet immersed in an acrylic wash, as they slide across the surface of paper, leaving a trace of their journey in the form of a straight horizontal line.
Lifted from the floor to the wall, the tracks of the body moving on the firm ground become traces of imaginary movement on the outer edges of the built space. The imprints of the feet on the wall suggest a playful challenge of the body’s relation to space and to gravity, and the line – at once continuous and interrupted with the marks made by the feet falling, touching down, losing balance – appears as an attempt to scale the circumference of the room using the body’s range of movement as a measuring device.
Running around the space as a fence of sorts, the traced line points to the tangible outer boundary of the room, “confirming” the walls’ presence and solidity as a frame and a container for human action. At the same time, the line performs a certain canceling gesture, enacting a perceptual cut in the wall to suggest distances beyond the confines of the built environment. In that sense, the drawings comprising To Still the Eye conjure the horizon, as a physical manifestation of distance, an endpoint destination for the eye, and a metaphor for the future and for a sense of possibility.
—
Location of the Croatian Pavilion:
Artiglierie
Arsenale
CAMPIELLO TANA 2169/F
30122 VENEZIA
Italy
The participation of Croatia at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is organized by Moderna Galerija – National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb with financial support provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. Additional support provided by City of Pula.
This Here and That There – Herrenhäuser Quartet
A performance by Vlatka Horvat at KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen Hannover
Dates: 19 / 20/ 21 May 2018
11am – 7pm daily
Performed by:
Karen Christopher, Noémie Solomon, Season Butler, Vlatka Horvat
My show Extentions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (MSU Zagreb) has been extended until the end of March.
Some photos of the show can be seen here.
I have work in three shows opening this month:
I Am the Mouth: Works from The Art Collection Telekom at MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia. Curated by Nathalie Hoyos, Radmila Iva Jankovic and Rainald Schumacher.
19 January – 18 March
—
Natural Artifice: Architecture, Photography and the Construction of Reality at The Glass Tank Gallery, Oxford. Curated by Frederik Petersen / Entreentre.
22 January – 23 February
—
Borderline Relation at Eastwards Prospectus, Bucharest, Romania. Curated by Tevz Logar.
25 January – 24 March
I just uploaded some pics of my solo show at MSU Zagreb. Titled Extensions, the show is part of the Kožarić Studio “Laboratory for Reviving” exhibition cycle, curated by Radmila Iva Jankovic. The show looks great I think and is on until 25 February.
Here are some details:
“Laboratory for Reviving” exhibition cycle has been held every year since the Kožarić Studio moved from Medulićeva Street to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Artists or curators present projects that find an origin, inspiration or a link in the rich holdings of the Kožarić Studio. Always willing to start from the beginning, using dynamic processes of transforming “garbage into gold” and vice versa in order to strip his own works of the aura of untouchability; the artefacts in Kožarić’s Studio often got a chance at a new life.
In the performative gestures of Vlatka Horvat, which are often enacted in situ, through the ever shifting dynamic relations between architecture, the body and objects, but also speaking to a wider context, it will not be difficult to recognize points of connection, even resonance. The works in the exhibition Extensions – as well as many of the artist’s earlier ensembles – were mostly created using rejected, dysfunctional items. “By modifying and adapting these found objects it is as if I’m extending their expiry date, whilst at the same time literally spatially extending or repeating some element of their form, or some aspect of the space they occupy,” says the artist. “I am drawn to the ways in which objects ‘improved’ in this way embody a kind of a paradox – they are extended or enlarged in space, but this process of expansion simultaneously compromises their function, transforming them from usable, ‘useful’ items into puzzling objects caught in the processes of concurrent fragmentation and multiplication.” The purpose of these performative gestures is a transformation that creates a certain tension and activates imaginative processes in multiple directions, both emotional and associative. Objects that were in their former life associated with acts and conditions of ascent, rest, fitting-in and adapting… through these artistic gestures which emphasise some of their key spatial or functional features using a set of witty do-it-yourself strategies, appear here as absurd reminders of an almost existential state of stuckness, marked by an inability to hold on to things or to put them in order, so that we may finally get going, or else, stop.
My solo show, Extensions, opens on Wednesday, 20th December at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) Zagreb. Working against the clock 🙂 so more info shortly!
A couple of press things for my show in Milan:
Maria Chiara Valacchi wrote a critic’s pick review on artforum.com:
https://www.artforum.com/picks/id=72902
and
Elena Bordignon chatted with me over email for ATP Diary:
http://atpdiary.com/interview-with-vlatka-horvat-surroundings/
(the English version is below the Italian)
My show, Surroundings, opened this week at Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea in Milan. It’s on until 20 January 2018.
You can see the documentation here.
And here some words from the press release:
In Surroundings, Vlatka Horvat’s first solo show at Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea, the artist approaches the idea of horizon line as spatial limit and border whilst at the same time exploring its powerful and contradictory metaphorical status as aspirational destination. In works manifested in different forms and media – altered photographic image, collage, sculpture, and fragile site-responsive material interventions – she renders the horizon as an edge of space and visibility, and as a sign or site of future potential and action.
Horvat’s approach begins with a new series of collage works titled End in Sight. In each of them, the artist cuts parts of the image that contain the horizon and relocates them over lone human figures standing in natural landscapes, connecting the cut horizon lines to their counterpart on the other side of the figure. The new, longer horizon line produced via this procedure is no longer interrupted with the presence of the figure, but rather leaves the figures interrupted, obscured or even blanked out. Multiplying and extending the land and sky to “repair” the caesura enacted by human presence, Horvat’s work poses the horizon line as a “replacement” for the eyes; it takes the place of the eyes, rather than being a destination for the eyes. This “takeover” of the landscape upon the human figure further draws attention to the symbiotic relation between the natural setting and living beings inhabiting it, whilst pointing to the problematic aspects of our presence in landscape as well as our “lostness” in it.
A similar contradiction lies at the heart of At Some Length, a fragile sculptural intervention which Horvat uses to connect the front and back spaces of the upstairs gallery. Made from scraps of string and elastic knotted together to form a single line, the work follows the path of the existing walls of the room, a frail marking of – and on – an already existing solid spatial barrier. Ambiguous in purpose and intention, Horvat’s intervention is at the same time an improvised measure of the space and a rudimentary territorial marking or fence reminiscent of barbed wire – however materially inadequate for that purpose. It is also a simple dividing line, separating the room into what lies above and below this temporary division – a crude landscape drawing conjuring spatial expanse and distance on the walls of the gallery.
In the other collage works in the show – grouped under the name Tree Line – Horvat intervenes repeatedly on an image depicting trees at a waterline of a lake, their forms reflected perfectly in water below. This uncanny already doubled horizon line is subjected to a series of diverse interventions which at time emphasize and at other times obscure or render illegible the strip of the horizon.
The procedure of using the line as both a means of connecting and of separating is used again in the set of two sculptural works titled Set Right in which Horvat first cuts up wooden tables, removing certain parts from them – the table top in one instance and a leg in another – and then performs the gesture of “repairing” the missing parts of these objects with cardboard strips – once again using a temporary material, decidedly inadequate for the job. In this process the tables are altered from functional everyday objects into non-utilitarian ones. The line used to “repair” or complete them creates here a field of action that is simultaneously material and imaginary, as the lines extend, re-frame and re-imagine the tables as hollow 3-dimensional line drawings in space, marking out the boundaries of newly created enterable spaces.
Throughout Surroundings Horvat works and reworks the line as a compositional element central to framing and making readable human presence in space, approaching the line both as a means of tracing our presence and as a trace left by our presence. In addition to the compositional significance of the line – its function to delineate space, demarcate limits and boundaries, and trace trajectories – the show also focuses on the line as a common metaphor for continuity, infinity and distance and as a sign of future, of possibility, and of the end.