Anže Sever: Nonlocalities

The projects of intermedia artist Anže Sever focus on the viewer, who plays a decisive role in shaping the artwork or becomes an integral part of it. The artist does not engage the visitor by demanding participation from him but rather places him in situations in which he recognises his own placement as a surprise or interruption. In constructing specific spatial conditions, he often refers to physical phenomena and quantum mechanics. He creates spatial installations that involve the viewer with his physical experience. Sever constructs environments in which he focuses on the process of spatial perception and the visitor’s experience with minimal intervention in the space, based on subtle scenography or an emphasis on existing architectural elements. He defines his work as an exploration of everyday phenomena and, by emphasising the obvious, shifts the automated perception of reality into the realm of the new, the unusual.

That any and the barely perceptible presence of the body already has an impact on the environment is highlighted in Field (2014). The installation consists of painting foil made into a corridor form through which the viewer walks, displacing the air with his movements and causing changes in the space that become visible in the form of the undulating foil. In Duplication (2015), he explores the role of the viewer as a fundamental component of the artwork. He creates a situation in the gallery space where the events in the exhibition venue are transmitted live onto a projection. The viewer thus becomes the artwork and at the same time the observer of his own self as well as of what is happening in the space. In more recent projects, the artist dispenses with materiality altogether and only uses sound as an undulation with which he intervenes in the space.

At Likovni salon he presents two projects. In the work Threshold 2, he stems from the transparent architectural plan of the gallery. The trapezoidal form, surrounded on all sides by high glass surfaces, connects with the external urban environment through its transparency. The contact between inside and outside interests the artist, who extends his latest sound installation to both sides and creates an experience of presence. Speakers mounted on the interior wall edges and next to the glass surfaces, emit different frequencies and cause a strong vibration that spreads outward from the gallery space to the street. It creates a disturbance in the habitat of the everyday and leaves a mark in the experience of passers-by. The viewer who enters the gallery space experiences the vibration of the space that permeates the body even more intensely. The actual opposite of an intense physical experience is shown in the video Waiting (2016), in which we observe an actor in the act of waiting. The slowed-down action, lasting several hours, shows the presence of the body in an almost motionless state, in which only minimal movements can be perceived. The traces of emotional states are expressed most eloquently through the reduced gestures by the facial expressions, ranging from concentration to fatigue and restlessness. The artist’s deliberate placement of the subject in a passive stance, in a state of unsolvability and waiting for a better tomorrow, lucidly characterises the present times, trapped in collective fear and uncertainty.

Anže Sever (1991) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. He has held solo shows at Equrna Gallery, Ljubljana; Kino Šiška, Ljubljana; Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana and Simulaker Gallery, Novo mesto. He has participated in the four-year project by DUM – Association of Artists, aiming to connect young artists and institutions. He has presented himself at the international festival Kiblix in Maribor and has taken part in a number of group exhibitions (Gallery Zelenica, Ljubljana; DUM Project Space, Ljubljana; Miklova hiša Gallery, Ribnica; Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana; Sloe Gallery, Manchester, etc.).