P74 Gallery ARCHIVE PAGE

9 January 2014 – 28 January 2014
P74 Gallery, Trg Prekomorskih brigad 1, Ljubljana

You are cordially invited to the opening of the stand-alone exhibition THE NEW WAVE Watch out for children! by Tinkara Babić, Alja Piry, Jaka Vatovec at P74 Gallery on Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 7 pm.

Please join us for a pre-opening talk with the artists at 6:30 pm in the gallery. The talk will be moderated by Iza Pevec.

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We are pleased to announce the first opening in P74 Gallery of 2014: the exhibition of three talented, outstanding artists of the youngest generation: Tinkara Babić, Alja Piry and Jaka Vatovec.

If, by definition, the new wave has always represented new phenomena of countercultural youth tendencies – in France in the 1950s, in the US and England in the 1970s and 80s, etc., as well as the young, up-and-coming featuring experimentation, anti-corporation, processual, style and genre diversity – along with a dose of kitsch, pop art and street art.

Tinkara Babić, Untitled, 2013

Tinkara Babić creates knitted graffiti (known since 2009 in the US as “yarn bombing”), a form of anarchic handicraft combining the skills of knitting and crocheting with street art. Basically, it’s the art of decorating urban objects in colourful knits. These public interventions can last several years, yet they are conceived – similar to graffiti – as something ephemeral.
Tinkara Babić creates entire installations in which she encases objects, newspaper clippings and advertisements with motifs of consumption: from packaging for EKO-BIO-LIGHT cornflakes to a motif of the Pope or the commercialization of sexuality, etc. The gallery space changes into a picturesque, subjective cocoon. The installation is a subjective outpouring of materiality, beautiful and anarchic, humorous, ironic and (sometimes) absurd.

Alja Piry, Z vsem spoštovanjem, Navodilo št. 1, 2013

The conceptual works of Alja Piry are formed as installations, pictures, drawing/text, sound, video works or artist’s books. In her works she often thematises scenes from nature that are intended as decorative or amateurish, since the concept and effect are more important than the materiality of the work itself. Alja Piry understands the artwork as a generator of communication and collaboration. In the playful yet subtle works, the minimal interference into the space, the integration of the viewer into the process of creating the work and the frequent use of texts, we recognise important influences from conceptual art.

Jaka Vatovec, Altar detail

Jaka Vatovec is an offspring of the Postojna clan. He abides by the motifs of the horror film genre (so-called trivial filmography) with all the necessary iconography of skulls, christenings, zombies, blood, candles, spiders. Vatovec is interested in the theme of social perception of mental health and normality of the individual, social alienation and stereotypes. “My main visual inspiration comes from old B-horror movies, especially ‘eurotrash’ of the 1960s and 1970s,” says Vatovec, who is active also in the field of fanzines. In cooperation with Leon Zuodar (of Beli sladoled) he established the fanzine PROFILE OF THE SKULL. In short, prepare yourself for a nightmare – a triple one at that.

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Tinkara Babić (born 1990, lives in Ljubljana) graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Ljubljana, where she continues with her post-graduate studies. Until now she has collaborated on the group exhibition Vstop (Enter) at Alkatraz Gallery and in the exhibition Brlog (Den) in Simulaker Gallery in Novo mesto (both 2013).

Alja Piry (born 1982, lives inVienna and Ljubljana) studied art history at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (2001–2007) and then studied painting at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2008–2009 she was a guest of the exchange programme at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht. She has presented herself in numerous solo and group exhibitions, among them, the 15th Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in Thessaloniki, Greece; Kunstraum ProArte, Salzburg; Kuenstlerhaus, Vienna; Pilon Gallery, Ajdovščina; the International Centre for Graphic Arts, Ljubljana; and DLUM, Maribor.

Jaka Vatovec (born 1989, lives in Postojna) attended the Secondary School for Design and Photography in Ljubljana and then went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Ljubljana. He is currently preparing his diploma.
Until now he has presented his work in the group exhibitions Vstop (Enter) at Alkatraz Gallery, Ljubljana and Transform 2012_Pandora’s box, Teloglion Foundation of Art of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Thessaloniki, Greece (both 2012).

The programme of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and by the Municipality of Ljubljana, Department for Culture.