Metka Krašovec and artists, former students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana – a group exhibition: Prisotnosti / Presences
20. 4. – 30. 6. 2018
ACE KIBLA / KIBLA PORTAL, Valvasorjeva ulica 40, Maribor

Art is life.
Being here, being now. Ontologically being-there.
Presence cannot be avoided.

Academy-trained painter Metka Krašovec, one of the most prolific and highly esteemed Slovene artists, received the 2017 Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement, for her outstanding and recognizable painting opus. In 1977 she was elected Assistant Professor for Painting and Drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. As Associate Professor and later Full Professor at the same Academy, she continued to inspire generations of students until her retirement in 2008. More than guiding her students as a devoted lecturer and mentor, she used the medium of painting to explore the mystery of life’s truths and values. It is the livingness of art that guarantees an artist’s actual life. Metka Krašovec has lived by this maxim her entire life. Her painterly presence, her typical and recognizable color palette, and the sheer volume and diversity of her oeuvre, continue to serve as a compelling source of inspiration to future painters. The present exhibition is a unique opportunity to observe an artistic “confrontation” between this dedicated professor and her former students, now acclaimed artists.

The group exhibition PRESENCES (named after the now famous painting series by Metka Krašovec from the beginning of the nineties) examines a kind of an internalized relationship, a group dynamics, emanating from intriguing, highly specific and quite individualistic communication gaps that are being bridged through a mutual collaboration between the mentor and her students. It is not about pedagogy, however; it plays no role in the conceptual dimension of this group art show, which is indeed shaped in part by the selection of one dedicated teacher, Professor Metka Krašovec, yet, on the other hand it is subtly connected to the curatorial concept, which places the exhibition Presences: Metka Krašovec and selected artists, at the very top of the visual art scene in Slovenia. Rather, it seems to be a matter of Socratic maieutics: the birth and emergence of a psychological interior, following and responding to natural impulses and – which is essential – the search for one’s proper visual self (and one’s visual expression) without the need for an anti-transmission of a subjective discourse, which tends to happen all too often within a pedagogic setting or practice.

Presences, therefore, is an exhibition that allows for a direct insight into a thirty-year long mentorship, the result of which is certainly evident to this day, but at the same time it is about the presence and actualization of the sanctity of “pure” art, which is beyond the subversive thirty-year mission, one that Metka Krašovec embarked upon to circle around the realm of painting, drawing, graphics and also literature; in other words, to unravel the knot of onomatopoeia, also known as – life.

—Nina Jeza, Artists and Poor’s

“I am known as a notorious perfectionist, a force to be reckoned with. Complete focus, complete commitment, and at the same time a sense of complete ease, so that the flow can begin, before conscious will breaks everything down. It is my ambition – unfortunately I am not sure whether it was ever realized – to bring a painting to the point of making it resound. To make its silence resound. To achieve a state of inner silence, our innermost sound, just by looking at the painting. If I were to achieve this, it would mean getting close to perfection.”
– Metka Krašovec

Participating artists: Metka Krašovec and: Karmen Bajec, Viktor Bernik, Saša Bezjak, Gigo de Brea, Andrej Brumen Čop, Mitja Ficko, Dušan Fišer, Marija Flegar, Milan Golob, Marko Jakše, Anja Jerčič Jakob, Barbara Jurkovšek, Jurij Kalan, Maja Kastelic, Aleksij Kobal, Robert Lozar, Izar Lunaček, Mojca Oblak, Boštjan Mesarec, Rok Predin, Arjan Pregl, Irena Romih, Zvonka T Simčič, Matic Sonnenwald, Natalija Šeruga Golob, Katarina Toman Kracina, Petra Varl, Sebastijan Vojvoda, Marij Vrenko, Mojca Zlokarnik, and Živa Žitnik.

webpage: prisotnosti.kiblaportal.org

Curators: Arne Brejc (Equrna Gallery) and Nina Jeza (ACE KIBLA)

Selection: Metka Krašovec, Arne Brejc, Nina Jeza

Exhibition set-up: Arne Brejc, Nina Jeza, Aleksandra Kostič

Technical crew: Simon Sedmak, Milan Grlica

Editing and design: Snežana Štabi, Dijana Božić, Petja Janžekovič

Partners: President, Kommunio / X-OP Association for Contemporary Art / Association for Arts and Audio-Visual Production CODE BLUE / Artists and Poor’s

ACE KIBLA Production
In collaboration with Equrna Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana.

ACE KIBLA is co-funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Maribor. Project RISK CHANGE (2016–2020) is co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.

ACE KIBLA is a member of M3C, Multimedia Centers Network of Slovenia; International Platform X-OP eXchange of Operators and Producers; and McRU, Network of Slovenian Arts Research Centers.

Artist’s portraits:

Artists videos:

Exhibition catalog:
Prisotnosti / Presences – Metka Krašovec and selected artists
140-page full-color group exhibition catalog
format 29,7 x 29,7 cm

We are pleased to inform you that the exhibition Prisotnosti / Presences has ended successfully with the release of our exhibition catalog. The art works showcased in KIBLA Portal were photographed by Damjan Švarc.

The texts are available in Slovene and English, and were written by:
Aleksandra Kostič, Peter Tomaž Dobrila, Nina Jeza and Artists&Poor’s, Nadja Zgonik, Petja Grafenauer, Neža Tisa Herlec, Mojca Zlokarnik, Sebastijan Vojvoda.