"I'LL ALWAYS BE THERE. ALWAYS."

»I'LL ALWAYS BE THERE. ALWAYS.«
Media representations of characters, pop and contemporary art

Gallery of Contemporary Art, 21. 7. - 1. 10. 2017

Participating artists: Vesna Bukovec, Jure Cvitan, Tomaž Črnej, Gašper Kunšič, Tomaž Tomažin, Nika Oblak in Primož Novak, Iza Pavlina, Mark Požlep, Adrijan Praznik, Arjan Pregl, Oliver Pilić, Andrej Škufca, Manja Vadla, Mladina magazine (covers 2016, 2017)*

Curator: Maja Antončič

"I'll always be there. Always. It's not the powers. Not the cape. It's about standing up for justice. For truth. As long as people like you are out there, I'll be there. Always." – Superman (Action Comics, #840)

A good sixty years have passed since the glittering images of advertising ads, star icons and film entered the field of art for the first time. The exhibition at hand attempts to show just how skilfully the references of media content and similar culturally interesting phenomena of everyday contemporaneity are being abbreviated by artists today. However, in contrast to the presentations of "pop art", which would relate to this specific direction of art particularly through historical connotation or association both in terms of form and content, it is the character, as the bearer of the popularization of cultural content and mass consumption that stands in the forefront of the exhibited projects. The emphasis is on using the well-known language of the mass media, which presents various semantic challenges, supported by the chosen character in the artwork. The character is in this case the player who already blurred the borders between reality and fiction in his original existence, but now constructs additional messages and creates a field of reflection or criticism within the context of contemporary art. Thirteen artists draw from an extensive dictionary of media images, online social networks, from the narratives of film and advertising, as well as the marketing apparatus. They speak of the "heroes" of contemporary society that fill our everyday zone of the visible and the perceptive. They are joined by a selection of covers of the Mladina magazine, whose authors – along with some other artists in the exhibition – satirically change the "heroes" into "anti-heroes", and less frequently the other way round.
The transition from the idols of the past – the "idols of production" to the idols of magazines – the "idols of consumption", took place in America in as early as the 1940s, according to the biographical research of sociologist, Leo Lowenthal. The classical hero, who fulfils his social roles, is pushed out by the "personality that no longer determines what he does, but the skill of self-representation, self-construction and the ability to simulate what this figure is supposed to be." It is precisely media representation that symbolically indicates the perception of the authority and legitimacy of someone or something. Pop culture is therefore always also a place of political and ideological conflict. (B. Luthar)
By using the elements and techniques of pop culture, the artists are making pop culture even more visible, entering the field of wider and closer political strategies. Through monitors, which replace picture frames, and travels into the world of media characters and artificially created faces of society, the artists either comment or take advantage of the phenomena that form an integral part of a complex circle of popular culture. The artistic presentations make a comment exactly where the effects of popularization do not leave us indifferent, but contain similar, if not identical, approaches of presentation. With a good degree of irony and humour in the representation of their heroes, the artists create a field of criticism, establishing a part of the discourse about contemporary society that sells its soul despite a clear insight into the problems of capitalism and collapse of social values. They recreate a ubiquity of buyable fictitious images that are always here. To reveal their own selves.

Read more

* – design: Damjan Ilić, Tomaž Lavrič, Ivian Kan Mujezinović, Fabrika Sarajevo – photography: Uroš Abram, Borut Krajnc, Matjaž Rušt