Toni Soprano Meneglejte: meneglejte meneglejte 
7. 6. — 6. 7. 2019
X-OP / artKIT, Glavni trg 14, Maribor


The new art work meneglejte meneglejte, (co)produced by X-OP, Association for Contemporary Art and Toni Soprano Meneglejte, will be showing for the first time in Maribor. The exhibited spatial installation plays with the illusion of introspection, a superficial, of course, narcissistic observation of oneself, while “fooling the eye”, trompe l’oeil, pulls us towards the bottom, which is something the artist achieves through the application of basic artistic means. Combined into an intermedia installation, they associate to either a well or a pool, or they imply a metaphysics of a consecrated space, acting as a kind of sanctuary, a sacred place of self-realization through the “fooled eye”, a temple of spiritual encounter with oneself.

The effectiveness of the installation draws us in, and as we search for paths to ourselves, we are caught by surprise when confronting the ‘image’, or ‘images’, which play with our own perceptions of ourselves. The three-dimensional environment of the object turns into a subtracted immersive reality, which reflects the two-dimensional consideration of the subject reduced to the ego and the ego’s (auto-)projection. The self-image convinces us, “I see what I am”, or, “what I am, I see”, and the decision of accepting or not accepting this suggestion is our own.