A site-specific installation developed in the past two months uses the volume and the character of the given space as a necessary framing for a new sculpture of monumental dimensions. The artwork combines modular grid structure, the element of nature, sound and light. The artists often use different media to create an experience of an all-encompassing environment, molding the ephemeral into a palpable temporary presence. The work talks to an embedded notion of beauty and positive grandeur in all of us; humanity’s capability to learn, accept, grow and protect. All materials are used to create a temporal installation, a fleeting and sublime experience that will remain in our shared memory of today will be returned to its previous state (therefore creating zero waste).

Future is a matter of projection, but mostly a consequence of actions we mindfully trigger today.

Ljubljana, 29.11.2018

“A year ago, during an amazing concert by Benjamin Clementine at Kino Šiška, I needed a break; what was happening onstage blew my mind, so I had to step outside. Waiting for my drink, I looked to my right and focused on the big white wall. Then I saw the piece. A site-specific intervention that shifts the element of stage lights onto the wall and puts a written statement in the center. A frozen moment of elusiveness and the defiant persistence of a thought. A verse from an old song of mine that keeps on lingering in my mind, to the point that it assumes its autonomy. So I searched my pockets for a piece of paper, an action of recurring beginnings. A fragment of all the songs of tomorrow.”

JAŠA, October 2018

With selected art posters and a documentary film, the Lovest, revisited presents the project the Lovest, which lived and breathed from 2011 to 2014.

Strategically and in terms of content, it is a continuation of the project I’m Culture, with which the visual artist JAŠA left a significant mark on the Triennial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia in 2010, curated by Charles Esche. The artist developed a strategy of the relationship towards the entire exhibition and space, focusing on the unused areas. He carried out a series of events that took place in all areas and functional groups. They were set in the between-space, the coat check and the non-functional café, among the toilets, next to the lecture hall and elsewhere, opening up a chaotic world, diametrically opposed to the orderly exhibition aesthetic that dictated the walls of the gallery one floor up. The entire happening attracted a new, younger audience to the Museum of Modern Art, excitedly paying close attention to the happening, full of fun, humor, subjugation, destruction and shock. With the intervention nearly merging with the space, it seemed a shame for the project to come to a sudden end.

A mere two weeks after the conclusion of the triennial, the project evolved into a new one, called the lovest. Together with his collective, the artist established an alternative entrance through the window, allowing visitors to enter and exit freely, and painted the windows of the gallery basement in bright colours. With both interventions, he aimed to soften the façade of the “old lady” and/or the dilemma that turned many away before even entering the gallery. He soon moved his studio into the gallery, building form and structure on a daily basis and leaving his doors open during the official gallery opening times. The installation attaining a satisfactory form was followed by organised events that soon competed with all the other Friday night gatherings. The period coincided with a broader “renaissance” of the club scene in Ljubljana and elsewhere.

Over time, the lovest became an excellent instrument of active experimentation in combining individual media into a whole of events that – regardless of the debauchery, happening, concert, dancing, performance or other raging – always ended with the same words by the legendary gallery doorman: “The museum is closing.” The author aimed to utilise the form of a club or party as an artistic form, a participatory Gesamtkunstwerk. As he adds today: “Speaking about the lovest is speaking about life as we saw and lived it.”

The opening of the the Lovest, revisited exhibition was followed by a premiere of the short documentary film the lovest, revisited (25 min), directed by Maša Nonković and JAŠA, at Kino Šiška. On her own initiative, Maša Nonković followed the happening and captured it on tape, with the author fearing that the events will lose authenticity due to the presence of documenting. It later became clear that today this is the only document capable of distilling the atmosphere of that time.

the lovest, revisited is a tribute to the young and active production at the time: JAŠA and the entire team; Luka Uršič – KALU, Nina Vidrih, Janez Vidrih, Aljaž Košir – Fejzo, Primož Nemec, Griša Šoba, Metka Dolenec, Michel Drascek and Meta Grgurevič, Urša Vidic, Taja Toplak, Saša Šuštar, Marko Požlep, Maša Nonković, LeftFinger and KUD LJUD; at the Museum of Modern Art: Zdenka Badovinac, Igor Španjol and Adela Železnik; and many others who contributed to individual events as authors – thank you!

The project is dedicated to the late Maks Soršak, Assistant Director of the Museum of Modern Art.

Thank you to the following external collaborators of individual the lovest events: Bartillier, Bowrain, Crisitiana Palandri, Dick & Greta, Eldo Willer, ENKA, Felis Catus, Giorgio Guidi, Irena Tomažin, Junzi, Jyrki Riekki, Lux, Matej Stupica, Matjaž Brulc, Mina Fina, Monsieur Moo, Neon Dekadence & Mique, Nicola Genovese, Nina Fajdiga (and Jasmina Križaj, Leila McMillan), Paul Destieu and Julien Toulze and Otto Prod, Roman Uranjek, Ruff Roga, Softskinson, Some1else, The MIha Artnak, Uroš Abram, Vladimir Mićković, Yanya, Your Gay Thoughts, Žakpižon, Zeleni Zajec.

And all of you who came and were part of the whole. Thank you, JAŠA. 

JAŠA turns his attention towards an old hotel in the seaside town of Piran; what we end up with is a philosophical examination of transient private and collective spaces. The monumental project, NoWhere / NowHere in Art Hotel Tartini has been conceptualized and realized as a site-specific work of art as a whole. A meditation on the relationship between art and architecture, hotel and guest, utopia and reality, possibility and the impossible; various elements come together to create an overall experiential narrative.

An existing architectural frame holds within it a concentration of bygone times, a history of people that once where, a space so extremely over-layered with the material, a heavy presence of an accumulated past, a blank slate that still holds memories and emotions of the no more. A challenge is presented, an archeological approach of sorting through physical layers and metaphorical traces left behind. A search for utopia begins. The impossibility entices a more significant challenge. Does this ideal space exist or is it just a figment of our imaginations?

The instinct is to strip it bear, make it white, rip it raw, a blank canvas. Whiteness becomes the starting point, an immaculate theme that lingers beyond and into what will be. Strip it bare in order to see and hear. Feel. The whiteness holds the air, not only for a new imprint to be embedded but permits light and air to seep in. A state of surreal emptiness allows listeners into the rooms.

Does the space define the art or does the art define the space? For JAŠA, it is a constant dance, an intricate back and forth, both of which are approached with responsibility - the result being what had to happen.

“I came up with rules to only break them eventually so I could breathe into the material, giving them an autonomous life, to embed a certain attitude and approach.”

With his central large-scale glass installation, JAŠA subverts the emotional experience of the viewer. The beauty of the sublime, an unbearable lightness, a presence of a constant threat. A statement that is as much aesthetic as it is political. A half a ton of broken glass is suspended from the ceiling upon everyone that steps in. This frozen rain hangs in the heart of the space, its democratic center, accessible by anyone and everyone, visible from all angles, it is the common ground. Walk bellow a plethora of broken glass, an inevitable unpleasant feeling of threat permeates, an intentional balancing of beauty and menace that further ripples throughout the whole.

Walls and floors that whisper. An interchanging of whispers, of sporadic bits and parts that elude to a narrative, but never a logical narrative that one would expect. The tale is what traps the visitors there, in NowHere. The entrapment is sincere, a sincere act of curiosity. “When the eye opens to curiosity, you hear whispers that you never heard before.”

“My work is about enduring within a certain situation, allowing the ephemeral to mold reality as long as possible.”

In his manifesto, Wayne Koestenbaum positions the hotel as a space for possibility, posing the question, “Does one check into a hotel or does the hotel condition check into you?” With this monumental work of art, JAŠA entraps the viewer within his narrative, a place of pure poetry where writing disappears. Invisible writing. Writing on the walls. A place of fiction, of fragments, of quotations and palimpsests of what was, what is, what will be. A place where both dragons and little mice fly. A narrative that arises from the need to overcome the dictum of “I miss you”— how to give more words, shapes, and colors to the empty spaces standing in between us, between us all. To inhabit it with something else. The reality. NowHere. Within the actual architecture and structure of living, the ephemeral becomes an experience of a palpable orchestration of elements that bring the “NoWhere” into “NowHere.” A piece of broken glass can be turnedfrom a discarded element into a new luring sculpture; its reason is light, its rhythm is time. Poetry does define life, and when it does nobody is short of greatness.

- Mitra Khorasheh and JAŠA

What does it mean to come home? Am I going towards new home or an option of home? Before the tragic flood

of devasted people who had to flee their homes in Syria, that has found a way, on foot through the Balkans, and

the region has seen its share of complete destruction and human tragedy. I was ten years old, when the country

I was born into, Yugoslavia, broke into pieces. What used to be a peaceful, colorful and above friendly, became the

platform of all unleashed hatred, aggression, and brutality. For years I struggled to cope with all the contemporary

nonsense, manipulation and power that has divided the once beautiful country into smaller sections, I happened to

be in one of them, and it has ever since felt as if the world I was born into, shrank to the size of a housing storage.

Newly imposed borders made us strangers, almost obliged to follow the mentality of division, segregation, and

nationalism. Power is an option, that should come with a strong sense of responsibility, no matter which sector it

molds, hence in politics, therefore, it should have been a prevailing and only dictating rule. However, we all know

well, that that is not the case, unfortunately. Nevertheless, the rebellion starts from within, and it is here where

walls can actually collide, every day, brick by brick.

*

The composition continues.

In light of our deep ambivalence about our global socio-economic situation, the question of the political

commitment, in art and elsewhere, seems to be calling out for alternatives that do not shy away into the usual

underground.The poetical, the individual act of defiance, a voice, sound, a repeating gesture as a poetical stance

and standing resistance. Composition No. 1, 2 & 3 saw JAŠA unravel in New York City, Folkestone and Atacama

desert on his own, what he did for six days a week, for 29 weeks, with a group of people, during the duration of

the performance, the same issues, the same questions.

In essence, the composition remains the same: ephemeral, gestural, a form of resistance, only now reacting to a

different context, as it molds in response to a delicate and menacing political climate. The core is an architecture

of resistance, which manifests actions through presence and language. Actions and interventions are spread

throughout the eight-day performance, reacting to the local, the temporal, a simplicity is fueled by the urgency

of the now, a repercussion in time and space, we must recoil quickly, react to what is happening around us, being

immediate and relevant.

(Reactionary—immediacy is the medium. Relevancy—say it out loud, now, instantly, perform,

proceed.)

There is tension under the surface. Egocentrism has swallowed us. Today’s rapidly changing day-to-day necessitates

action, comment, responsibility, response. We are in an urgent state of ideological crisis that has resulted in the

psychological breakdown of society. The situation needs constant attention, it requires reaction, as individuals

and as different groups as a whole. All of it was there from the beginning; it now depends on which elements

will surface through, which emotions will become the generator for a particular ideology. Art has always had the

responsibility of being both a catalyzer and generator. Punk as an attitude was a reaction to a stiffening tissue of

the era; Dada was significant opposition to boiling extremes that brought humanity to meet its most monstrous

side. In each inch of our bodies lies a potential disaster; as we are facing the most existential dilemmas on every

step, each cell can decide to deteriorate and bring out the worst in us while we are dreaming of beauty. At times,

it may be better to limit yourself than to continue the illusion of all accessible freedom, which ends in nothing less

than limitless ego. A lake of me-s to drown in, a lake of us to love me.

Alternative forms of communication do exist; visual, musical, symbols, patterns - what we need are regular

executions, to be exercised regularly. An exchange of situations creates the uniqueness of experiences. A Beuysian

gesture in its potential to transform society. A simple exchange; a catalyst for hope. An act that will be what

it is. Through repetition, gesture, and embrace, we reach the shores of ones most authentic self. In his recent

composition’s, JAŠA limits himself into a reverse situation - an honest way to face the self in front of self. Every

thought can deteriorate. Every character can have many shades. A manifestation of a contrasting process that

embraces aggression as emotion to give birth to the poetic. The obscurity of space reveals the preciousness of

each gesture, gestures that parallel and overlap in time and space. All in one body, a dance with gravity. Now. It is

time to scream in the face of absurdity. Only together can we erupt and break free. Openness. A dense cloud of

energy and spontaneity. When all is said and done, we transition into memory; we leave no trace.

All in one body we walk...

The feelings of regret, embarrassment, and shame, I felt as a child dreaming of lost history, culture and

knowledge came rushing in once I set foot in the desert of Atacama. Endless account of the destruction of the

native civilizations by European nations, autocratic regimes and present reckless exploitation of the

environment that only man can create. It seems that humanity and individual nations have an exquisite gift for

forgetting and embracing in contemporary politic's extremes of apparent setbacks on all frontiers that we, as a

society are facing now, from environmental meltdowns to nationalistic ideologies. Chile is no exception with it's

present presidential and parliamentary elections that threaten to send the country backward in the footsteps of

its darkest parts of history. The desert is made of communities that fight to maintain it's native language,

culture, and history. It embraces projects like A.L.M.A., one of the most significant observatories in the world

which is gathering data from the darkest pockets of the universe to give answers to the most basic question, of

how it all came to be. Needless to say, how one can feel powerless and small, when confronted with the

harshness and urgency of the boiling issues and therefore I need to continue, and primarily challenge myself,

my purpose and my advocacy in the given moment in time and space. Composition nNo. 3 will be executed in

the heart of the desert in a found and abandoned structure. 

The composition continues.

In light of our deep ambivalence about our global socio-economic situation, the question of the political

commitment, in art and elsewhere, seems to be calling out for alternatives that do not shy away into the usual

'underground'. The poetical, the individual act of defiance, a voice, sound, a repeating gesture as a poetical

stance and standing resistance.

Composition No. 1 & 2 saw JAŠA unravel in New York City and Folkestone, on his own, what he did for six

days a week, for 29 weeks, with a group of people, during the duration of the performance, the same issues,

the same questions.

In essence, the composition remains the same: ephemeral, gestural, a form of resistance, only now reacting to

a different context, as it molds in response to a delicate and menacing political climate. The core is an

architecture of resistance, which manifests actions through presence and language. Actions and interventions

are spread throughout the eight-day performance, reacting to the local, the temporal, a simplicity is fueled by

the urgency of the now, a repercussion in time and space, we must recoil quickly, react to what's happening

around us, in order to be immediate and relevant.

(Reactionary—immediacy is the medium. Relevancy—say it out loud, now, instantly, perform, proceed.)

There is tension under the surface. We have been swallowed by egocentrism. Today’s rapidly changing day-

to-day necessitates action, comment, responsibility, response. We are in an urgent state of ideological crisis

that has resulted in the psychological breakdown of society. The situation needs constant attention, it requires

reaction, as individuals and as different groups as a whole. All of it was there from the beginning; it now

depends on which elements will surface through, which emotions will become the generator for a certain

ideology. Art has always had the responsibility of being both a catalyzer and generator. Punk as an attitude

was a reaction to a stiffening tissue of the era; Dada was a necessary opposition to boiling extremes that

brought humanity to meet its most monstrous side. In each inch of our bodies lies a potential disaster; as we

are facing the most existential dilemmas on every step, each cell can decide to deteriorate and bring out the

worst in us while we are dreaming of beauty. At times, it may be better to limit yourself than to continue the

illusion of an all accessible freedom, which ends in nothing less than limitless ego. A lake of me-s to drown in,

a lake of us to love me.

Alternative forms of communication do exist; visual, musical, symbols, patterns— what we need are regular

executions, to be exercised regularly. An exchange of situations creates the uniqueness of experiences. A

Beuysian gesture in its potential to transform society. A simple exchange; a catalyst for hope. An act that will

be what it is. Through repetition, gesture, and embrace, we reach the shores of ones most authentic self. In his

recent composition’s, JAŠA limits himself into a reverse situation—an honest way to face the self in front of

self. Every thought can deteriorate. Every character can have many shades. A manifestation of a contrasting

process that embraces aggression as emotion in order to give birth to the poetic. The obscurity of space

reveals the preciousness of each gesture, gestures that parallel and overlap in time and space. All in one

body, a dance with gravity. Now. It is time to scream in the face of absurdity. Only together can we erupt and

break free. Openness. A dense cloud of energy and spontaneity. When all is said and done, we transition into

memory; we leave no trace. All in one body we walk…

On-site participatory action and permanent spatial intervention

2.12. & 3.12.2017

María Pinto, Chile

“El Futuro es Nuestro” is the first action of a series of intervention under the title  “BRAIDED”, a project founded in 2016 in New York

supported by EleStudio, HOP Projects, WE.ARE Institute & Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia Buenos Aires

Spoken word by Jaša                                          

Camera/sound/edit by  Tobias Belliard

MUsic: “Run run se fue pal norte” interpreted by the “escuela las mercedes” orchestra

POETRY: BRAIDED by JAŠA, 2014

with special thanks to all the children of  “Escuela las mMercedes”, parents, the orchestra, staff and the director, the municipality of María Pinto, the mayor Jessica Mualim and all those who made it happen, Tomas, Andres and Sergio Poblete, Mario Hans, Josefina Speranza, Ignacio Paredes & Sebasitian Rojas Cereceda

a spatial and performing intervention

curated by Mitra Khorasheh

A collaboration between HOP Projects and The Performance Studio in association with WE.ARE Institute

02.09. – 10.10.2017, Folkestone, UK

'What is there to do but wonder', a stranger’s face seems to propose. He was standing not far, but far enough for the other to stare back. As he, the other, stared at the stranger's face, dark-skinned, he could not see the stranger's lips move. 'Why you do not want to accept my gift'? the stranger added. He, the other, continued to stare at the stranger's face and moving hands, gesturing. Almost out of final frustration, the stranger added 'I am about to leave (there will soon be nothing left for me--to die or live for--here). Nothing common. No 'us.' He, the other, melted into the usual crowd, and then they all stared, they stared back, The stranger opened his dark umbrella, right above the cliff. 'And I only wanted to make you all some eggs', he said right before disappearing. 'And I only wanted to make you all some eggs', echoed in everyone's heads.

*

The composition continues.

In light of our deep ambivalence about our global socio-economic situation, the question of the political commitment, in art and elsewhere, seems to be calling out for alternatives that do not shy away into the usual 'underground'. The poetical, the individual act of defiance, a voice, sound, a repeating gesture as a poetical stance and standing resistance.

Composition no. 1 saw Jaša unravel, on April 22, 2017, in New York City, on his own, what he did for six days a week, for 29 weeks, with a group of people, during the duration of the performance, the same issues, the same questions.

In essence, the composition remains the same: Ephemeral, gestural, a form of resistance, only now reacting to a different context, as it molds in response to a delicate and menacing political climate. The core is an architecture of resistance, which manifests actions through presence and language. Actions and interventions are spread throughout the eight-day performance, reacting to the local, the temporal, a simplicity is fueled by the urgency of the now, a repercussion in time and space, we must recoil quickly, react to what's happening around us, in order to be immediate and relevant.

(Reactionary—immediacy is the medium. Relevancy—say it out loud, now, instantly, perform, proceed.) 

There is tension under the surface. We have been swallowed by egocentrism. Today’s rapidly changing day-to-day necessitates action, comment, responsibility, response. We are in an urgent state of ideological crisis that has resulted in the psychological breakdown of society. The situation needs constant attention, it requires reaction, as individuals and as different groups as a whole. All of it was there from the beginning; it now depends on which elements will surface through, which emotions will become the generator for a certain ideology. Art has always had the responsibility of being both a catalyzer and generator. Punk as an attitude was a reaction to a stiffening tissue of the era; Dada was a necessary opposition to boiling extremes that brought humanity to meet its most monstrous side. In each inch of our bodies lies a potential disaster; as we are facing the most existential dilemmas on every step, each cell can decide to deteriorate and bring out the worst in us while we are dreaming of beauty. At times, it may be better to limit yourself than to continue the illusion of an all accessible freedom, which ends in nothing less than limitless ego. A lake of me-s to drown in, a lake of us to love me.

Alternative forms of communication do exist; visual, musical, symbols, patterns— what we need are regular executions, to be exercised regularly. An exchange of situations creates the uniqueness of experiences. A Beuysian gesture in its potential to transform society. A simple exchange; a catalyst for hope. An act that will be what it is. Through repetition, gesture, and embrace, we reach the shores of ones most authentic self. In his recent composition’s, JAŠA limits himself into a reverse situation—an honest way to face the self in front of self. Every thought can deteriorate. Every character can have many shades. A manifestation of a contrasting process that embraces aggression as emotion in order to give birth to the poetic. The obscurity of space reveals the preciousness of each gesture, gestures that parallel and overlap in time and space. All in one body, a dance with gravity. Now. It is time to scream in the face of absurdity. Only together can we erupt and break free. Openness. A dense cloud of energy and spontaneity. When all is said and done, we transition into memory; we leave no trace. All in one body we walk…

JAŠA & Loup Abramovici

July 2nd, 2017, 10:00am-06:00pm, Museum of Natural History, Ljubljana

“What is there for a museum to be considered as a museum? How many stones, how much water, how many hours of work, how many workers?

How to honor the people, the different aspects, things that allow a visitor to face a mammoth or any other marvelous artifacts exposed in such a place with our own voice of passion and responsibility towards the now?”

*

The Artist choose The Museum of Natural History of Ljubljana as a fitting context for their durational performance entitled 'The Last Dance'. Open to the public on Sunday, June 2nd from 10 am to 6 pm, they will inhabit the rooms of the Museum. Their intentions are to exercise their will and convictions about potentials of an idea, concept if constrained to non-lasting forms. In contrast with historical and natural fact exhibited within the Musem, their gestures will come through only with the use of their presence, movement, and voices. Activity within the Museum of 'what was' will serve as a limitation and amplify of their manifested will and convictions. 

*

L: Different possible tracks crossed my mind as well. For instance, how would we be seen, what story would be told about us, if we were to be found a thousand years from now?

J: Or can the walls witnessing our actions pass on our intentions to new generations? People do. And they can tell stories.

Project by: Meta Grgurevič

Artistic overview and text: JAŠA

Curator: Michele Drascek
Construction of kinetic system in collaboration with France Petač
Choreography: Sanja Nesković Peršin
Performers: Marin Ino, Mateja Železnik, Tjaša Kmetec, Petar Đorčevski, Lukas Zuschlag, Richel Wieles
Music: Bowrain
Photography: Rosa Lux
Special thanks to DK, Rok Bogataj & Tjaša Gnezda

Project PDF

There is tension under the surface. We have been swallowed by egocentrism. Today’s rapidly changing day-to-day necessitates action, comment, responsibility, response. We are in an urgent state of ideological crisis that has resulted in the psychological breakdown of society. The situation needs constant attention, it requires reaction, as individuals and as different groups as a whole. All of it was there from the beginning, it now simply depends which elements will surface through, which emotions will become the generator for a certain ideology. Art has always had the responsibility of being both a catalyzer and generator. Punk as an attitude was a reaction to a stiffening tissue of the era, Dada was a necessary opposition to boiling extremes that brought humanity to meet it's most monstrous side. In each inch of our bodies lies a potential disaster; as we are facing the most existential dilemmas on every step, each cell can decide to deteriorate and bring out the worst in us while we are dreaming of beauty. At times, it may be better to limit yourself than to continue the illusion of an all accessible freedom, which ends in nothing less than limitless ego. A lake of me-s to drown in, a lake of us to love me.

Alternative forms of communication do exist; visual, musical, symbols, patterns— what we need are regular executions, to be exercised regularly. An exchange of situations creates the uniqueness of experiences. A Beuysian gesture in its potential to transform society. A simple exchange; a catalyst for hope. An act that will be what it is. Through repetition, gesture and embrace, we reach the shores of ones most authentic self. In his solo act, JAŠA limits himself into a reverse situation—an honest way to face the self in front of self. Every thought can deteriorate. Every character can have many shades. A manifestation of a contrasting process that embraces aggression as emotion in order to give birth to the poetic. For JAŠA, it is time to revisit utter, the violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope. It all started in Europe and exploded in America. Now. It is time to scream in the face of absurdity. 

The project consists of a sculptural intervention and series of performances. Within the show's political frames it seemed to me to literally occupy the sections of the designated space with a sculptural duplication of the same space. An angle a corner became my stage to testify my position within the broader political environment. Before the opening, I constructed the section with a crucial help of Drew, the technician who worked at the White Box at that moment. After the wooden structure was completed I invested the time at my disposal to start with layerings of colors; a seemingly pure esthetic action and statement that took a classical painterly approach to gain depth of color as a reflecting body within the show of variously loud political pieces. The action it self put my position and the work's intention under a question mark. For the opening performance, I started looking for one of the 'invisible' workers wich in New York are usually of Latin or Asian provenance. It was a great shock to me with what kind of distrust my proposal was met. I was offering a full payment plus complete anonymity, still, it seemed almost impossible, until we did find the right person through White box's personnel. He started painting the piece at 6 pm with yellow, to be followed with pink, baby blue and black, only to start again. His face was hidden within a black hoodie; his movement was impeccable. While he had to wait for the layers to dry, he was hiding at the back of the sculpture. When the opening concluded, he simply left. In the coming days, I came sporadically and unannounced during the opening hours and followed the same patteren.

On the 8th of November 2017, the day, eve of the presidential elections in the USA, the piece awaited the public in its last black state. I reached out to a group of artist to perform the last act amidst various action it space. Marty Cacic, Maura Pelletri, Jaanika Paerna, Xiren Wang and Franc Lesbros joined me for the action wich consisted of setting a base in the basement waiting for the peak of the night, right before the results would hit in. First I spray painted the text on it, then everyone else joined me. We surrounded the piece, all dressed in black and covered in hoodies, standing silently. With the given mark we approached the piece and lifted it unanimously. The actions lasted as long as we could.

After the results had come, space was gripped by chaos and nervosis, one of the consequences our camera with all the documentation was stolen, that is why I reached out again to restage the action on the last day before the installation was destroyed. This time Giorgio Guidi, Marty Cacic and Franck Lebros joined me.

JAŠA

UNTITLED 2017 is a performance, action, and intervention by JAŠA, live-streamed in real time for 6 hours in November 2016. Within the continuation of the cycle UNTITLED (2015, 2016, 2017), JAŠA's message is persisting in content that is relevant, for individual situations and for those communities that are, or should be. Facing a new period of celebrating the ego per-se, critical distance, and honesty is an imperative.

“We will never shut up, as we are so many, that is why I asked you to do this. This particular action, this time...” 

UNTITLED 2017, time-laps, 02:43

Cutting Through The Clouds of Myth was a series of actions, an intimate happening, an experiential installation and a language of communication. Two personas with radically different approaches to performance and in drastically different moments in life were placed within a space for a specific duration of time. This room was at once far too tiny and too vast for the both of them. This juxtaposition, this placement in time and space created a necessity of opposites to co-existence. The necessity to co-exist on a common ground was the only common ground; co-existence became a bare fact rather than a statement.
ULAY’s use of time and space is radical. True to his legacy, he came in and left his mark; he was the only protagonist in the action. Whereas JAŠA’s approach to performance centres on molding time into something less palpable, through creating a rhythm that goes beyond what it seems. The environment and JAŠA’s actions are one of the same, a body where every autonomous element works within the wholeness. By virtue of the necessity to co-exist, JAŠA created a reacting environment for and to ULAY; progressive, reactionary, a landscape, a soundscape, a physical condition, a living atmosphere within which each (artist) can stand for what he is and who he is. 

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The Relations is a composition in space and time, a series of interconnected yet autonomous gestures that meld imagery, poetry and performance together with his sense of responsibility. JAŠA notes, “appearance and perception are at the core of my interest in The Relations, the space-in-between, the gaps, the uttering of one’s emotion, the urgency to believe even if “the believing” does not have an obvious structure, or better I do not want it to have one”. Situations become images in JAŠA’s work; imagery constructed in relation to the tension between the detail and its dissected wholeness, which at once might occur as familiar yet distant. Looking at a diversity of relationships and associations to memory, repetition and re-emergence, JAŠA disrupts the familiar and entices the unexpected with his integration of the spatial and temporal. With constant re-materialization, we reach an apparent logic that seduces and bewilders. The trigger of a familiar situation creates an image constellation; independent gestures lead to an intensified experience. There is present-ness yet a simultaneous remoteness, hopefulness balancing vulnerability, beauty, and symmetry balancing chaos, tranquility balancing turmoil, a visual order that is at once nostalgic and open. Sounds echo and collide in harmony within this carefully choreographed atmosphere that seemingly relies on an invisible script. In The Relations, JAŠA embraces the monumental which constantly tiptoes onpersistent delicacy of the sensual, physical, direct, raw and loud. The latent scream seems to persist—maybe one of his most personal signatures—as it takes on interconnectivity of facts, interpretations and existence.

NOTES AND THOUGHTS OF THE ARTIST ON THE INSTRUMENT

For 29 weeks, 6 days of the week, a group of performers and collaborators orchestrated by the author, spent embedding what through time became a precise and meaningful manifestation of artistic will and resistance within an artwork. An important passage from embodying to embedding occurred as disciplined smearing of the structure’s surfaces, passionate in its strict devotion to continuous execution with clear marks of not only presence but also a powerful message.

UTTER has, as a system, from its very beginning, embodied the notion of passing time and the acknowledgment of its expected end. Therefore mindfully executed (pointless) acts performed in UTTER as a wholesome instrument gained meaning and strength. It is important to point out that it has never been the project’s intention to disclose the process but to use it as its main driving force. Utter was a profound manifestation of a well-planned structure and execution braided into one breathing wholeness or “Togetherness”.

FROM EMBODYING TO EMBEDDING

It all comes out of mastering the "distillation"; embedding a thought process into an autonomous work. It only works when this process enables an object to obtain its own autonomy, which does not belong to you anymore. You were lucky enough be the medium and executor - a vicious game of giving and taking, of gaining and losing, of hurting and loving, the moment I call; It feels like tip-toeing on the edge of a euphoric sense of beauty, or more commonly, the creative process.

In the spirit of the project, uninstalling consisted of two crucial parts, the disappearance of the original structure and conception and fragmentation of singular works of art that now stand as autonomous testimonies of what needed to happen; creation and resistance. Structuring the project was based on the parallel development of

singular bodies of work, that once together formed as one. Up-close, one was able to focus on one singular element in order to grasp the fractal conception of the work (from detail to whole and back). Chronicles / Log. No 1 focuses on this exact drive of the creative process, comprehending it’s totality and fragility. An obsessive or (better) inspired vision to deliver and comprehend singular works (as enclosed micro-environments/ documents of existence) and at the same time to question the resilience of singularity and therefore almost visceral necessity to stitch them into a wholesome breathing organism.

Proportion, the relation of size or medium has always played a very important role in my work, where I highlight the contrast or similarity and this is another important angle within this show. The reality and perception of how this singular works occupy and define space. The space in-between, the gaps, the air is so very important as for the public to seize their opportunity of experience, as for the artist to create the right rhythm of how they work together. And as the subtitle “The violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope” proposes, it can be loud as it can be caressing, but most of all it is necessary.

Chronicles / Log. No 1. is all about precision, elegance, and punctuality. All in the service of the inevitability of one's touch and how it covers the given material with existence.
This is the beauty, the need, and responsibility towards one's creation.
What we need to do on the way to achieve every next step, who we need to become, it's simply like facing a white canvas every morning, this perfect moment of everything and nothing, as one single beat of the heart.

The project’s title embraces the very core of JAŠA’s aim to create an artwork as both a poetic stance and a dynamic, politicized presence. The work is conceived as a spatial installation and on-site performance that will bind the artist, his collaborators and the public together for the duration of the Biennale. The project consists of an installation, an architectural drawing activated to become a reflection of thoughts, and a durational performance that expresses the necessity to (re)act as an embodied form. These elements coexist and entwine to form the integral experience of the artwork.

The project “Utter / The Violent Necessity for the Embodied Presence of Hope” focuses on three major themes: resistance, collaboration and hope. The energetic stance of each theme will be resolved, in part, via a long-term coexistence of a performative body within an architectural shell, the co-creation of repetitive performative actions, and the production of harmonic moments. A polyphonic situation of visual, sound and performance will be submitted to a rigorous weekly script, which will be repeated 28 times, from May 9 the till the November 22nd. Occupying such a substantial span of time, JAŠA’s project will use the platform of the Venice Biennale not as a segment or as a temporary display of parallel realities, but as a stand against prevailing reality.

It is JAŠA’s belief that an artwork can become politicized only when the ideology that drives it is inspiring and not dictating. Considering the demands and ecstasies of repetitive durational performance, the project is a structured act of discipline. It is a call toward collective sensibility. Through continuous repetitive actions, knowledge, gestures and the transfor- mation of these gestures into rituals, the group of performers will summon a rebellious force, which by the power of poetry calls upon a pandemic realization of the idea of community and unification.