Spring programme 2023

The Figurative: Selected Examples in Slovenian Art
April 6–August 20, 2023

Spring at Cukrarna Gallery started with the opening of a group exhibition of selected works by 32 Slovenian artists. The selected cross section of individual pictorial languages and poetics comprises works by artists who, in their oeuvre as a whole or, more rarely, at certain stages of development, have depicted both the real and the metaphysical world in a more or less mimetic way. The exhibition looks at the figurative language of art. This is shown either in portraits or in various relationships to the world such as the urban environment or the landscape, or as a form of conscious or unconscious cognition on the imaginative level.

The alienated state of mind and other present-day forms of hopelessness have determined the conception and selection of works ranging from the second half of the last century to the present day. Figurative tendencies have manifested themselves in Slovenian art in specific individual artistic phenomena, art directions and languages such as existential figuration, expressive figuration, fantastic art, pop art, photorealism and hyperrealism, the new image and the art of reinterpreting the world of new media, influenced by the rise of information and communication technology and the presence of electronic media and media-transmitted images.

The exhibition presents 138 artworks made by the following artists:
Berko, Janez Bernik, Mirko Bratuša, Dragica Čadež, Matej Čepin, Tina Dobrajc, Milan Erič, Zdenko Huzjan, Marko Jakše, Zmago Jeraj, Staš Kleindienst, Lojze Logar, Erik Lovko, Živko Marušič, Franc Mesarič, Zoran Mušič, Silvan Omerzu, Miha Perne, France Peršin, Štefan Planinc, Marij Pregelj, Maksim Sedej jr., Marjan Skumavc, Ana Sluga, Gabrijel Stupica, Matej Stupica, Miha Štrukelj, Maruša Šuštar, Marko Šuštaršič, Milena Usenik, Sašo Vrabič, Uroš Weinberger.

Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec: Reading Reading
April 13–May 28, 2023

A week after the opening of The Figurative, the exhibition Reading Reading opened in the Basement Space of Cukrarna. The exhibition is a comprehensive presentation of the artistic research project that Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec began in 2017. The project engages with reading as a bodily activity, and as the relation between the spoken word as an event in time, and the written word as an object in space. The project is a manifestation of the various ways of capturing, embodying, and unsettling the temporal relations that unfold between the written text, eye movement, the inner voice and phonic substance while reading by altering the ocular desire and slowing down, reversing or stopping time between sensing and making sense.

It is conceived as a multimedia spatial installation that activates the relations between the six selected works. From the larger series Reading Reading, created between 2019 and 2023, the following works are on display: Reading Vito Acconci (2019), Reading (as) Bodies (2020) and Reading Reading (2020), which are placed alongside the newly created works – The Landscape of the Passerby (2022–2023), Touching Reading (2023) and Morphology of a Pre-view (2019–2022), which are presented for the first time.

Sophie Thun: Leaking Times
April 20–June 11, 2023

The last spring exhibition opening was Leaking Times by Vienna based artist Sophie Thun who works primarily with techniques of analogue photography, its spaces, processes as well as conditions of production and exhibition. For Leaking Times, the artist moves her usual work studio to Cukrarna Gallery for the duration of the exhibition.

For five weeks, Sophie Thun will be present to record, conceptualize and represent her work beyond the dichotomy of lived and measured time. She allows the inherent interference of work, production, representation, life and aesthetics to melt into a performative texture. In self-determined gestures, she eludes moments of before and after, creating instead her own time capsule, her own temporality.

In a setting of space-expanding photographic interventions Sophie Thun pursues everyday artistic tasks for five weeks. Instead of serving the inflated capitalist demands of an attention-seeking economy, she visibly counters them with her self-determined artistic practice, thus reclaiming her life.