The exhibition Offline opens a window into the latest work by students of painting at UL ALUO. The exhibited works reveal the diversity of painting style and thematic focus that arises within the learning environment, and at the same time reflects the broader context of the time in which this generation is creating art. The exhibition’s title, Offline, indicates a shift from the incessant flow of information and images that define the modern digital environment. At a time when images are created, circulated and then vanish with extraordinary speed, a painting is a physical object that retains a different rhythm. It emerges slowly, through repeated decisions, corrections, strokes and adjustments. Paintings do not blink, they do not flit past our view and do not compete for attention; they demand time and attention.
Today, in a world of mass media, a world where everything is immediately and infinitely reproduced without limit, a world of poor quality images, a world in which some blurry snapshot can lodge itself on millions of screens, painting is all the more relevant. A carefully selected image. An image created through precise, deliberate brush strokes (or any other carefully considered technique), an image that bears within itself repeating analyses, intensive observation, an image in full resolution, in natural size and in real time. Some artists work using appropriation and found images, others focus on depicting modern reality and direct experience, while for others painting opens the door to parallel or imaginary worlds.
Young artists today are shaping their expression in a period of striking social and political shifts. In recent years their experience has been marked by numerous wars, increasingly salient environmental issues and uncertain social conditions. In artistic works such circumstances do not appear necessarily as direct commentary or clear statements, but frequently as a more subtle sensing of instability, doubt or introspection that translates into a visual language.
This exhibition represents a space for a plurality of views. Together, the works create a fragmented, yet living portrait of a generation that is using artistic practices to question its own position and the scope for expression in a world flooded with images, information and the relentless acceleration of time.
Artists: Eva Anzeljc, Ana Božič, Maša Črešnik, Emili Jenko, Maks Jeriha, Žiga Kelenc, Anja Kočar, Zoja Marčec, Matic Moškon, Kalina Naskovski Perne, Bojan Pejović, Klara Polajnar, Kaja Podgoršek, Milan Radomirović, Tara Rubinić, Sara Stevanović, Ajš Mak Vičar, Nejc Zorenč, Matej Zupan, Ana Žele, Eva Žgajnar, Kristian Župan
Mentors: Prof. Ksenija Čerče and Asst. Prof. Uroš Potočnik
Co-mentors: Prof. Žiga Kariž and Asst. Prof. Mitja Ficko
MGBS curator: Ema Kobal
Production: University of Ljubljana