Marjan KrošlCONCEPT PHOENIX

CELJE GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Marjan Krošl

CONCEPT PHOENIXGarden Ner

Celje Gallery of Contemporary ArtJune / July 2009

Catalogue published byZavod Celeia Celje Krekov trg 3SI-3000 CeljeRepresented by Milena Čeko Pungartnik

GALERIJA SODOBNE UMETNOSTI CELJETrg celjskih knezov 8SI-3000 CeljeTel.: +386 (0)3 42 65 156Fax.: +386 (0)3 42 65 164e-mail: galerija.celje@siol.netwww.celeia.info

Catalogue edited by: Alenka DomjanExhibition was curated by: Alenka DomjanEssays: Alenka Domjan, Marjan Krošl, dr. Mojca PuncerEnglish translations: Tanja PassoniEnglish proofreading: Eric Dean ScottPhotography: Maja HodoščekPrinted by: AS PRINTNumber of copies: 30 Year: 2009

CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikacijiNarodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana

75(497.4):929Krošl M.

KROŠL, Marjan, 1959- Concept Phoenix : Celje Gallery of Contemporary Art, [June-July 2009] / Marjan Krošl ; [essays Alenka Domjan, Marjan Krošl, Mojca Puncer ; english translations Tanja Passoni ; photography Maja Hodošček]. - Celje : Zavod Celeia, Center for Contemporary Arts, Gallery of Contemporary Art, 2009

ISBN 978-961-92011-7-6

246381312

ESSAYS

Alenka DomjanTHE PAINTING / A MODUS CREANDI

Marjan Krošl

A THEORY OF PROVOLUTION IN CONTEMPORARY ART CONCEPT PHOENIX

Mojca Puncer A CONVERSATION WITH MARJAN KROŠL

January – June 2009

Alenka DomjanTHE PAINTING / A MODUS CREANDI

In order to understand the origin of Marjan Krošl’s creative process and the artistic aspect of his work, we need to understand first the role of the PAINTING in his oeuvre. We are therefore interested in the painting as a stimulus for Krošl’s wider theoretical practice based on the visual field, the artist’s own method of work and self-analysis of the static, material structure, as well as in his standpoint which, imbued with reflections of his own and others’ experiences, originates in the painting as the concept of his work. Through painting, Krošl develops and relativ-izes the entire value of his theoretical discourses.

The painting of Marjan Krošl is reminiscent of the matrix of liquid crystals which enable on one side the per-ception of a wider field of visual information and on the other a different detection by the gaze each time the position of a single painting is changed (transposed), while each moment of transposition results in a new visual order. By way of copying and refining the painting and in the process of combining these paintings into diptychs, triptychs, at times even polyptychs, the artist imparts to the paintings a different world of co-exist-ence. The latter, however, is not to be seen as a structure transforming into a completely objective cognitive and cultivated form, but rather as a “process”. Therefore, Marjan Krošl’s creative space is not a constant, firm material reality, but a dynamic concept assuming and transposing the meanings with regard to specific circumstances into new forms of perception. The pictorial space thus becomes a field of constant negotiation and theoretical discussions on how, for instance, a specific form of a painting or the series of paintings will express the entity of a creative sphere in a specific moment of time and how it will change at other times and in different circumstances of co-existence.

Marjan Krošl regards and uses the painting as a formula of comparison with which to re-question the relation-ship between the unknowns that develop within the artistic patterns and systems of transposition (of paint-ings) in order to establish a new relationship among the paintings. Krošl’s paintings have no definitive position, neither is it possible to claim that there are paintings in particular standing out for their content, form or artistic expression; each of his paintings can be a painting of “another painting”, as well as each a painting in itself, and each concatenation of paintings forming a new and larger compositional whole can become a medium of transcendence and revelation for further theoretical reflection. Therefore, Krošl’s paintings follow some kind of rule which could be traced in the “Japanese gardens” design, where every constituent element of the garden (water, stones, evergreen vegetation and sparse flowering undergrowth) has its own and common position to form an aesthetical effect. The similarities can also be found at different levels of Krošl’s creative process, which are temporally stratified and closely connected; from the void vital for the understanding of the adjacent and all subsequent elements developed by the artists on the pictorial surface, to the veiling of the gaze (from the outer world), which for decades offered the artist a very personal and quiet place for reflecting and creating, and above all allowed for a mental “walk” around the creative “garden” where he could experience the absolute efflorescence of spirituality. Nothing is more sacred for Krošl than his own PAINTING. One could safely inscribe over the entrance to his studio: “Do come in, and close the door behind you.” Thus, the painting would certainly assume an immutable eternity. Today, after many decades, Marjan Krošl is placing his paintings into a new, pub-lic space, in the gallery space as a social product imparting unintentionally an ideological connotation to the works of art.

But no worries. Marjan Krošl is an analyst. Typical of him are slow and sustained movements. As the GARDE NER of his own, very specific creative practice, Krošl is well aware that improvement without openness is not pos-

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sible, neither in his own nor in the public, though ideologically marked, space. But Marjan Krošl is not searching for material value in this space. Rather, he seems to be after a discursive environment, and above all recognition which is, to paraphrase Rudi Laermans, the “symbolic capital of the art world”.

THE PAINTING is and will be Marjan Krošl’s mental universe, his expansive view of the world where the territory for the mental process and realization of all understanding opens up and, through abstract pictorial fields, ex-tends into isual as well as other artists’ written theoretical forms.

Marjan Krošl A THEORY OF PROVOLUTION IN CONTEMPORARY ARTCONCEPT PHOENIX

The following theory is written at the level of PRIMARY DISCOURSE. The definition of this term is pro-vided in the TERMINOLOGICAL GLOSSARY of the Slovenian art magazine LIKOVNE BESEDE (Art Words) by the painter and theoretician Dr. Jožef Muhovič. I think this is the proper level for my text since I am a self-educated painter. The present theory is a result of my practice, my artistic experience. Through this NARRATIVE ACCOUNT, I aim to animate the appropriately qualified experts, to reasonably stimulate them – from the position of an exterior, other, different (point of view) – to consider in “a different light” the current issues and topics with regard to art and the world in which we live and work.

Due to a historically incomparable complexity and interconnectedness of world issues, my work (or the work of anybody) today can be effective only if I am aware of its partiality, particularity (of any) tool, me-dium, method or language. IN THE GLOBALIZED WORLD, the only possibility of CON-TEMPORARY inter-ventions lay in CO-OPERATION. My work or the work of anybody can only be relevant in CONSTITUTION with other fields of activity or disciplines. Although, as a painter, I chose to set out on the path of self-education, I take as a reference point the GREAT NARRATIVE OF ART HISTORY, while the main source of my inspiration are the renowned art works from museums and galleries. Since ACADEMISM IS REFERENTIAL FOR THIS TRADITION, I have asked TOP-MOST EXPERTS for their opinions and advice. Without their patience, this theory would never have seen the light of day. Therefore, I must thank Dr. Marko Uršič, Dr. Jožef Muhovič, Dr. Lev Kreft, Dr. Gorazd Kocijančič and Dr. Boštjan M. Zupančič. I approached each of them in a specific set of circumstances, and on well-founded grounds. Moreover, I feel obliged to emphasize that all these Respectfuls (even if I took into consideration their suggestions or opinions to more or less extents) are not to be held responsible for the present theory. I consider their responses first and foremost as a valuable orientation, as well as an important incentive.

In particular, I owe a great debt of thanks to Dr. Mojca Puncer, whom I admire for her intellect, energy, courage and frankness. Her contribution has given sense to the narrativity of this text, helping it acquire a composite form.

Celje, March 24, 2009, Marjan.

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In The Botanical Gardens ,1986-2004 dispersion tempera on paper, 3 x (100 x 70 cm)

CONSTITUTION OF TRANSCENDENT PERCEPTION

Painting for me is both a medium and a tool. Through it I express myself and at the same time explore art and life, wherefrom my paintings originate. As a self-educated painter, I explore painting in terms of practice and theory. The specificity of my approach is in that my theory is based on practice and not vice versa. Therefore, theorizing is driven by practical reasons; it represents a written analysis of a painting, of the process of its becoming and of my personal formation. As a painter, I view this process as a polyptych, a string, or a “type”. I ponder upon types of endeavours, types of approaches, the method, Language, and specificity of others, or difference in relation to others. I ponder upon the possible potential of this difference.

The nature of my work is complementary. At the material level, it consists of artistic articulation, while the immaterial level involves the experience of formation and recognition. BOTH LEVELS ARE EQUIVALENT. I ponder upon the process of the making of a painting and the realization of life experience. I ponder upon the constitution and cultivation of a complex, polyform perception. From this perspective, I see life as a space of differences, a space of relationships. I ponder upon the differences and relationships present at different levels of existence; the differences and relationships in the sphere of life and of art; the differences and rela-tionships among individuals, collectives, systems and strategies. I’m equally interested in their details and the relationship among them.

Despite the fact that painting is a visual medium, I perceive and discern it with all my senses: as colour, as smell, as sound. I perceive and discern it with touch, with any means at my disposal. I am well aware that my artistic articu-lation comes as a result of my complex experience. In reality, painting is the point of departure and motive of my engaged and creative relationship towards my – inner and outer – life. At every step and in every moment.

If I consider my activity as experience, then I regard this experience as a space, or rather a place, which I see as a place of mirrors, a place of reflections. I am talking about reflections of paintings, about their individual expressions or meanings, and about the expression or meaning of the relationship among these paintings. I regard my paintings first and foremost as symbols.

I am equally interested in the expressions and meanings of singular paintings, and in the expressions and mean-ings originating from their interacting reflections. At the beginning of my creative process, these relationships are empty, contentless. The distances are inexperienced, indiscernible, unrealized. My experience as a painter begins at this very point, in this VOID. I see the moment of the constituting of intention as a mystery. For me, the moment of the constituting of the conscious decision for an engaged perspective is like birth. The for-mal experience is preceded by the potentiality of the moment of decision, which, at first, is but a possibility – at this stage, still fragile.

At the moment of the constituting of decision (of the centre, the core, the essence of the engaged activity) I am overwhelmed with astonishment, with anxiety, knowing that I have no argument, no experience, no assurance. I feel tense. I feel the necessity for evidence, orientation, expressing myself, communicating, me-diating. I feel the necessity for taking action.

The first step (in me) chooses a direction and I feel this as – a leap into the Void. As a matter of fact, this aware-ness of the Void, of its presence, emerges at the very point of experiencing this first step. At the same time, there is the awareness of being exposed, of fragility, transitoriness. Fear. Explicit also in this is the aware-

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ness of the presence of a certain POWER that transcends me. All THIS creates me by creating my intention, my will. It creates me in such a way that (THROUGH THIS) my body and my life gains sense and meaning. This manifest, real PRESENCE reassures me. BEFORE, THERE WAS NO SUCH FEEL-ING.

Any direction (from this point), any decision (here and now) is first and foremost my DESTINY. I am aware that this decision is the RIGHT one, that it is a VALUE, for it is ONE AND ONLY – one-off, non-recurring, fragile, exposed, transitory. Standing on the verge, looking from the outside, I am conscious of all this somehow. I sense all this almost like I sense the scent, or feel the taste, of apples, for instance, hear the sound of the wind, perceive colour – yellow.

At the moment of projecting the gaze from THIS POINT, the Void transcends into the space, which I see as a space of becoming, of creation, of experience – a polyform space of differences and meanings. My paint-ings within this space are specific profiles, suggestive tools. They are, above all, interesting because I can sense in them an intent, a concrete reason.

In this very space, my theory is the THEORY OF DIFFERENCE. If today, as an artist, I look around, if I look OUT INTO THE WORLD – what I notice first in art is the difference between the modern and the contemporary. At the level of the planetary constellation, I see modern art as the re-presentative of a privileged, referential, capitalist, post-colonial Western civilization grounded in Christian ideology. Another term for this ideology is DOGMA, which perceives the world from its own perspective, its own “truth”, its reason, its ambition and its plan – for it pos-sesses AUTHORITY. This authority is projected into the space and into the world in the form of an argument, a WEAPON. A weapon that serves as PROOF and demands absolute conformation. Consensus is not possible.

It is interesting to note how, due to a change in the 1980s, Russian art, which before had been only marginal, was “elevated” to the level of Relevant (Western, referential) art. The same goes for Chinese, African, Abo-riginal art. Other, “different” arts followed. The status of these cultures was thus elevated from the status of margin to the status of region. Why was this possible? Why did it happen at that particular time?

In their book Empire, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt write about the expansive potential of Western corpo-rations, which inadvertently transcend the boundaries of the state and control, spreading their ambitions at the global, planetary level. As the authors put it, these are the logical consequences of the endeavour of the capitalist Empire, which will, due to its limitless exploitative ambitions, take control of the whole planet. The authors’ point of view is clear: the capitalist, corporative strategy is unacceptable and needs to be opposed. What I find disturbing, though, is their “linear” thinking, the technical argumentation of concrete facts and the warning of the unavoid-able consequences, while leaving out the other side of the truth, which is by nature complementary. I believe the trend of development of events on this planet not to be linear! New efforts of the European Community to-day substantially depart from exploitative tendencies. I don’t want to claim that these efforts have no drawbacks or that they are free from fault! NOW IT IS CLEAR THAT THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS NOT TO BLAME FOR THE CRISIS, BUT A FEW INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BEEN EXPLOITING IT. Just as any other system, this system can only function appropriately if it is managed and upgraded according to NATURAL LAWS AND RULES. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT CAPITALIST ECONOMY WILL BE ABLE TO OPERATE EFFECTIVELY ONLY IF AN EFFICIENT NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL CONTROL IS ESTABLISHED. WITHOUT SUCH CONTROL, THIS, AS WELL AS ANY OTHER, SYSTEM OF MANAGEMENT APPARENTLY IS NOT POSSIBLE. Of course, we could come up with something new – return, for instance, to the old, “good” COMMUNISM, developing out of it a new, “ecological vari-ant”, but, at this point, it would be necessary to “confine” somehow the CONTINUOUS-STREAM-OF-EVENTS, or

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“turn” it for some time in another direction (Where? How?)! I think that only a system that significantly and logically upgrades the REAL CIRCUMSTANCES is possible. A system that will not require a sort of faint “ab-stract delay” or a revolution in order for it to function properly.

My theory deals with changes in the planetary constellation of statuses, both at the collective and individual levels of our existence. I consider these changes as landmarks of the passage from the formal (state) to the polyform (suprastatal, planetary), GLOBAL organization. A feature of this trend is, in my view, the change in the man-woman relationship at the individual level (today). How to name this change?

Since the central point of my theory is the polyform, complex perception, I shall point out that I see it as TRAN-SCENDENTAL PERCEPTION, constituting an essential relationship between human, individual consciousness and the so-called supraconscious: the latter virtually transcends the former. I regard this supra-conscious-ness as a complementary sub-consciousness which C. G. Jung dealt with in one of his books. I believe that the THESIS of complementarity (of the relationship) between the subconscious and the supraconscious virtually supports the idea of existence of either one or the other. I also believe that the subconscious without its complementary pole, or level, has no NATURAL, “ANATOMIC” REASON.

The transcendence of perception represents a crucial experience in my work. Let me stress, however, that I personally have strong reservations towards religion, though the SYMBOL OF GOD, in my view, repre-sents the very heart and the universal potential (of nature) of perception of EVERY human being (reli-gious or nonreligious, believer or disbeliever). I am confident that this fact allows for a different perspective, it enables us to look “outside”, into the space between different semantic forms and phenomena. This very potentiality is universal, supraformal, for it is inherent in our perceptual essence, transcending at the same time the form of our consciousness and stimulating CREATIVITY.

If I consider God as a universal potentiality, then this potentiality is also a common, in-tegrating, constitutive point of specificities of all individual perceptions, and, in my view, it constitutes the essence of the so-called COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. C. G. Jung wrote a great deal about this topic as well, offering convincing and well-grounded arguments. The existence of collective consciousness is actually the reason for my believing that it is exactly through THIS VERY POINT that the disbelievers also perceive the world, and that every dis-believer as well, be it man or woman, hides their own “god”, their creative, constitutive potential, some-where deep inside, perceiving it in their own specific and individual ways.

IF GOD IS EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS AND EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS IS NATURE, THEN GOD IS THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE.

I see the concept of God and the symbol of God as a life potentiality that allows the world to BE, to exist. Of course, this existence can only be possible if one develops such a point of view, such perception. If I hadn’t developed it, I wouldn’t be able to talk about this existence. What is important is that the relationship between the individual consciousness and superconsciousness is symbiotic.

Transcendental perception can be thematically illustrated by way of the double renaissance “perspective” pyramid, where the two lower surfaces of the two pyramids conjoin, forming a double, complementary pyra-mid. The junction of the two pyramids (their common ground) is the screen of our consciousness, a limit. The top of the first pyramid is the target of the outer, semantic, formal view, while the top of the second pyramid

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represents the cognitive point of the “inner view”, a concept analyzed at length by Anton Trstenjak in his book PSIHOLOGIJA USTVARJALNOSTI (Psychology of Creativity).

This point is at one and the same time the UNIVERSAL POINT OF THE NATURE OF THINGS. It is the POINT OF THE SUPERCONSCIOUS that transcends the capacity of my formal, semantic perception. My consciousness merely TOUCHES upon this point. In fact, this is the point through which my perception is PROJECTED onto or TRANS-FORMED in the opposite side, into SPACE – towards other perceptive semantic forms. This potentiality allows me to spatially contextualize specific semantic-formal facts and create new meanings, a new cognition.

THE SCHEMA OF TRANSCENDENTAL PERCEPTION, BASED ON A DOUBLE RENAISSANCE PERSPECTIVE PYRAMID

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ConsciousnessScreenImage

Outer view Inner view

Material Cognitive

Transcendental perception

Complementary, composed, complex

A – point of outer view (object)

B – point of inner view (cognition)

A B

Eye

I perceive the spiritual space of this schema as the space of recognition. I understand spirit-uality as sense-fulness. According to this schema, the idea originates from a complex, complementary, constitutive charac-teristic. The disintegration of a constitution results in schizophrenic and destructive tendencies.

Just as human consciousness is a screen onto which the image of our perception is projected, so the canvas (a sculpture, a gesture or a word, for example) is the screen onto which the artist projects or artifies his/her own perceptions. In my work, this process consists of painting, analyzing and upgrading. I believe that the essence of this process lies in re-cog-nition.

Seen through a polyform, complex way of thinking, the individual is a material-spiritual being. The hu-man body is complementary, composite also at the level of the material. It consists of the body of woman and man. An individual is a composite, complementary, complex, SPATIAL being. The springboard of this thought stems from the fact that I REGARD myself as an imperfect, constrained being, with all my weak-nesses, handicaps and ambitions. It is precisely from these facts, these concrete possibilities, that my potentialities and talents come from. How my thought is generated by the experience of my work, and what is the connection between my thought and my work, will be the subject of the following chapter.

THE PROCESS OF BECOMING

The present theory is the result of my artistic experience. I am appeased not only by the mere (pictorial) ar-tistic (re)presentation, but also by the reflection on the artification. Likewise, I am not only driven by contem-plation of artistic creation, but also by contemplation of my personal, internal and external conditions. Contemplation means raising awareness, where considering one’s own mistakes is of crucial importance. In my analysis, I try, as sincerely as possible, to rethink those circumstances in which I obviously failed. This, in my view, comes out of the necessity to systematically strive for the cultivation of an open, sincere, unblocked perception. For, I believe, only such SINCERE awareness-raising capacity allows for an OBJECTIVE view of the present reality – though only to a certain extent.

I view artification as the reading, cognition and recognition of potentialities, contents and possibilities. I view it further as an inter-active, constitutive method. Individual artifacts are integral, connective elements (ma-terialized or merely mentally conceived), distinguished from “design” for their openness, their transcendence. For this precise reason, artifacts are suggestive, animational, not just practical-formal-semantic or illustra-tive. Therefore, if I am to theorize my practice in this complex, “abstract” space of creativity, I need applicable evidence and the capacity of orientation.

Artification is a process of projecting transcendental life experience into artistic language.

The titles of the content and messages of my paintings are of symbolic nature, where the symbol is seen as a transcendent sign. If the sign is a semantic form, then the symbol transcends meaning. The direct semantic applicability of the symbol is transcendent, projected.

The creation or realization of the painting is, in my case, a process that lasts for years, even decades. But not without avail: since there are far too many artists in the world, and academies tend to “produce” more and more artists each year, over-production of artifacts is simply non-ecological. As a result, we are constantly and natu-rally looking for and developing new methods and strategies. There are even methods of total exclusion of the

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material production. Therefore, low output represents no obstacle for me. As a painter, I see in this alternative the reason for and possibility of thickening, of striving to achieve transparency.

In such circumstances, the process of becoming of a single painting assumes the same meaning as the painting itself. I work on different paintings or series of paintings simultaneously. Since I move spontaneously, though consciously, from one painting to the other, the process of their becoming can last for years or even decades. I believe that there are some circumstances in which I could work on a painting for my whole life. I even believe there must be someone who is doing exactly that at this precise moment. Today this is possible because there are so many artists. I ponder upon interventions and realizations that always come as a result of very concrete reasons, circumstances or facts. This concreteness represents for me the basic source of inspiration and ori-entation. Without this LIFE SUBSTANCE, all my endeavours would be in vain. What I am particularly attentive to are the coincidental events, those standing out for their manifest exceptionality. I see such events as a con-cord, as some kind of “synchronization”. I could call them ENCOUNTERS. This is what, from my first painting on, GIVES SENSE to my life both in the waking state and the dream state. This is what is termed transcendental dialogue, demanding from me a continuous, attentive, active, creative re-sponse, re-flexion or reaction.

I gather from my experience that in (the universal) nature there exists a certain “force majeur” or “principle of coordination” revealing itself in relation to the degree and way of perception. The limit of my perception is the limit of this dialogue. The limit is, therefore, PROFILE and LANGUAGE at one and same time.

My relation to this potentiality is not religious. Though it originates in the religion that so fundamentally marks the culture of the environment where I live and work, I feel this relationship as something intimate, per-sonal, as love; as consciousness of the concrete presence of the essence of life of universal nature; as a rela-tionship between the formal (personal, restrained) and supra-formal, complex, universal, “ex-ponential” level of perception. I see the relationship as a creative constitution, as an elemental potentiality (of human) creative capacity. For this reason, what is more important in my work than imagination is the capacity of transforma-tion and recognition. As a painter, I understand this transformation as artistic projection, as artification.

In my work, wakefulness is of crucial importance, meaning active, engaged attentiveness which I have been practicing from my first painting on. From that moment on, I have regarded every moment of dream or waking reality, illness, crisis or bad concentration as a specific state. Mistakes and successes are of equal importance to me. This means that specific moments or situations occurring along the way are relevant in terms of their specificities and characteristics. I am talking about the material source of my painting. I am talking about the method which transforms the matter of life into substance.

I think my capacity of perception is structurally normal, with no special characteristics whatsoever. Therefore, I don’t believe myself to have an additional or a particular sensory perception. If my perception is based on the phenomenon of synchronicity, this does not mean that it is innate! Basically, synchronicity is a technique, a strategy described in detail by the American anthropologist of Mexican origin Carlos Castaneda in his books. Since this name for many may not be referential, I shall mention that C. G. Jung also wrote a great deal about this notion. But while Castaneda took as the model of research of the phenomenon of synchronicity the Toltec culture alone, Jung identified it in basically every culture he came upon in the course of his studies. Apparently, this knowledge and the experiences of these cultures are ancient. I even believe them to be the source of all religions and, later on, even of science. This is, in my view, where the essence of human spirituality hides, as well as our spiritual, creative potentiality. In the last two centuries, science has, through its own interpretation

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and methods, formalized this potentiality, making it linear, closing it into various semantic-formal LOGICAL FORMS for very precise, sound and religious reasons. I think that, in its evolution, mankind has spontaneous-ly reached the level where the individual’s creative potentiality for the natural satisfaction of his/her needs, after transcendence, no longer necessitates a religious mediator.

A distinctive feature of my perception lies in the intensity of perceiving. In other words, this can be called hypersensitivity. Such perception has a good and a bad side. For thirty years of my life, I experienced the bad side of it. This experience resulted in a depression which was incredibly difficult to identify, even for doctors. In my early age, I had very serious problems, something akin to seizures. Today, I think these were mere attacks of depression, occurring in sleep while I was dreaming. I would dream of falling in the millstone. The feelings were horribly direct, they seemed real. The most horrible was the feeling that the dream would never end. Today, I am sure that the attacks were a consequence of my parents’ divorce, my family’s falling apart, which had a very traumatic effect on me.

When I was 22, I first realized that my life could also be meaningful. This was a rather unexpected, astonishing cognition. Painting opened up a new path of possibility. Today, I can write about acute perception, which does not cause depression anymore, but can be, on the contrary, very beneficial if I manage to engage it con-stantly and if I lead a life as settled and disciplined as possible.

Painting (and art in general!) engages me so much that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it gives mean-ing to my life to the point that I experience and accept the other, the inevitable, necessary, unpleasant factors as meaningful, as “sacred”. The technique of positive thinking has become a continuous, constitutive po-tentiality, without which I cannot imagine my existence. This strategy requires a continuous, attentive, well-con-ceived effort and is based on systematic autosuggestion, on mental exercises, wherefrom this theory derives. As a painter, I also experience this acute perception as a visualized imagination, or “apparitions” which, in time, have intensified, so that in recent years, I have been experiencing them more and more as visions, by which I mean “interior gaze”, or “inner eye”. C. G. Jung gave a detailed description of this phenomenon in his book PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES, calling it primordial image. His interpretation fits perfectly with my experi-ence. Such perceptions and other similar ones are recurrent during intensive and intensified creative work, or even unavoidable. But, unfortunately, only a few are aware of this fact or even think about it. I am interested in all aspects of the natural phenomenon of the VISUAL PRESENCE.

The condition for an effective (sane!) spiritual orientation is a sincere raising of awareness. In the conscious transcendental synchronization with the point of the universal essence, sincerity, or purity of interpretation, is of crucial importance. This process may also be called SPIRITUAL HYGIENE, not for moral but for technical, practical reasons. Since this very POINT basically functions as a “spiritual amplifier”, an unavoidable conse-quence of manipulation or exploitation is that it has a smaller or worse capacity for judgement or recogni-tion of the potentialities of the truth. As a result of systematic manipulation (telling lies!), perception “soils” or “obturates” like filters do. An extreme example of this is schizophrenia. A harsh fact is that those who perceive this way cannot see their problems, their injudiciousness. This is also the reason why schizophrenia is so difficult to heal. In fact, also, for those who are addicted to lying (lying is like a drug!), it is hard to evade their bad habit. My experience tells me that more than three-quarters of people (among the “healthy”!) are prone to lying. The harsh fact of reality is that this is being accepted as something normal, natural and unavoidable, which results in traumas, complexes and conflicts (at both the individual and collective levels). To avoid misunderstanding: I, too, view this as an unavoidable, natural condition of human perception, but I also believe that a lot can be done

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by way of conscious effort and “spiritual hygiene”. I further believe that, in the future, this will be the criteria to measure the degree of cultivation and civilization – at both individual and collective levels.

In spiritual hygiene, long-term effort is needed for small results. Only now, after a few decades of systematic work-ing on myself, can I see some positive results, some changes, shifts. Those who possess no such experience can-not recognize the “economy” of this process. Among “normal” people, such efforts are, as a rule, considered naïve, immature, even childish, and above all, useless and ineffective. At first sight, this might even be true! The methods of spiritual purification or spiritual hygiene are not “profitable” at close distance, at first glance. Of course, as time passes, those who nevertheless stick to this task feel it ever more intensively to be a special privilege. THE PURITY OF “AURA” VIRTUALLY DETERMINES THE DEGREE OF PURITY OF COGNITION AND JUDGEMENT.

At the time of a CRISIS OF RELIGION, art spontaneously and naturally takes on “spiritual tasks and du-ties”. Of course, such RITUALS are realized differently through art than through religion. I believe that “spiritual dimension” is becoming of crucial importance in art today.

I regard only partially the capacity of recognition, decision-making and cognition as my personal “property” or characteristic. I believe the relationship between the individual and the universal levels of consciousness to be of symbiotic nature.

The wilful constituting of trans-sensorial perception is for artists a mystic, initiating process. A necessary con-sequence of this is a change in life style – as well as of basic personal characteristics. Human beings change. Joseph Beuys called this process a “constitution of a new body”. As we have at our disposal only a limited potentiality, at the beginning of a continuous creat-ive process, one necessarily feels more or less tired and exhausted. Every story with such a beginning usually tells of an extraordinary, obsessive state or effort. I think extremism to be necessary, unavoidable. As my experience shows, consciousness can really OPEN UP and DE-VELOP only at such an energetic-perceptive BRINK. Effort and grief come naturally in such circumstances, as a logical and useful consequence. “Flames” are a means of purification, transformation, shaping. This is why I understand such a spiritual metamorphosis (at the beginning of an artist’s career!) as an ALCHEMIC PROCESS OF RESTRUCTURING, as moving or transforming between the individual, “egocentric” way of per-ceiving, which senses and EVALUATES the world from within (from personal, partial, subjective reasons and ambition), and the so-called complex, super-personal perception, which regards itself and its reasons as co-dependent, partial. I view the crossing of the border between these two levels as an act of initiation, a spiritual birth. It is exactly through this window or “Mikado” that the SPIRITUAL POTENTIALITY acquires its SPIR-ITUAL BODY, its FORM, its super-personal meaning and reason.

Transcendental perception is a dynamic, variable, labile, “floating” perception. Artification is an open process of becoming, an OPEN EXPERIMENT with no premeditated plan. At the beginning of this process, methods and decisions are chosen instantaneously, off-hand, intuitively. Therefore, the results are unpredictable. At the level of the open experiment, the so called “right thing” can happen regardless of the direction or method applied. Everything is possible, but not all is right! One soon becomes aware that for upgrading the intuitively chosen points of departure, a considered selection is necessary. The artistic creation that through this process of becoming assumes form can be compared with architecture, for I see architecture as a systematic order, as an urban planned “space” where visual art elements are organized in terms of strategy, structure and composition. If their organization is well-premeditated and well-conceived, such works already appear clear, transparent, “natural” and spontaneous at first sight.

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At a certain moment, I realized (with an intuitive vehemence) that things needed to be systematically upgraded and “organized”. I had to come up with a theoretical platform, some kind of mental plan or CONCEPT. This was in the 1980s, at a time when the CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT was right at hand. Information on world events was easy to access. This was the time of the decline of “modernism”. We read different artistic and philosophical treatises, but again and again I ran into the fact that nobody knew what was really going on. Everyone knew the time of modernism had been succeeded by postmodernism. Semantic and value forms were irreversibly losing their potentiality which caused a great feeling of uneasiness. Simultaneously, this was the time of the dissolution of the state in which I lived. I became attentive, since the INFLATION OF THE STATE MONETARY SYSTEM was astonishingly similar to the losing of potentiality of SEMANTIC AND VALUE FORMS, and this was NOT JUST the case WITH ART. I noticed that, the same as with painting and the articulating of specific im-ages or FORMS, I became obsessed with observing the relationship and interaction between these forms. I was aware of the fact that, without FORM, nothing could be expressed or communicated. Form is an elemental, necessary fact or tool. It was pointless to reject this, but apparently the problem lie elsewhere. The answer needed to be searched for at ANOTHER LEVEL. Slowly and spontaneously, it had become clear that the fun-damental problem of depreciation and inflation occurred at the level of “immaterial”, supraformal nature. THE PROBLEM WAS BEING DISCLOSED SPONTANEOUSLY IN OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THINGS, in our WAY OF DEALING WITH THINGS IN GENERAL. At the time, this relationship, due to EXPLOITATION, “stripped” every form of its function and value (at the level of “hyperinflation”, this had already happened in the stage of becoming, or the “forming” of form) – in art this was clearly manifested in the phase of high modern-ism. At once, NOTHING was good anymore. The Void was manifest at every step; there was the far too polluted nature (for instance, we have become accustomed incredibly fast to the fact that there are no more fish in rivers, that the woods are withering). No matter how hard you worked, no one was really interested in your art (if you didn’t have the appropriate acquaintances!). Machinations and fraud became apparently more efficient than sincere or honest efforts.

TODAY, DUE TO A DYNAMIC, PROCESSUAL POTENTIALITY, THE NEW STRATEGY OF POLYFORMALITY EXCLUDES THE RISK OF FORMAL, “LINEAR” SATURATION, AND ALSO THE VOID. THE PROBLEM NOW OCCURS ELSEWHERE, AT AN-OTHER LEVEL OR IN ANOTHER FIELD! SUCH STRATEGY OR SYSTEMIZATION IS BY RULE VERY DIFFICULT TO UNDER-STAND AND ORGANIZE. IMPATIENT, TOO-FAST, LINEAR PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIES DIRECTLY PRECLUDE SUCH POSSIBILITY. A NEW STRATEGY, A NEW APPROACH, A NEW WAY OF THINKING IS NECESSARY – NOT JUST IN ART.In conceiving my CONCEPT in such circumstances, the first thing to do was not to ground my text in some rigid “static formulation”. The most effective way of avoiding this was to write three separate, autonomous texts, which I called CONCEPT FENIX. These three texts constitute the primary “metaphysical” ground of my concep-tual work and as well that of my THEORY.

The elementary source and reason of every artification needs to be searched for in one’s living environment, from which it originates. I again and again return to this original thought. Since today we are confronted with GLOBALIZATION, my theory focuses on the specificity of changes at the planetary level, without overlooking the changes occurring at the local level – all are marked by an exceptional, exponential, historically incom-parable POWER OF DEVELOPMENT. I am interested in the development of specific fields or strategies and the interaction between them. I my view, today’s current events are a consequence of a historically incomparable, evolutionally conditioned phenomenon of human PERCEPTION. The intellect and the creative potential of individuals are growing spontaneously due to increasing information. Here, the rise in food quality and living standards is of crucial importance. The level that was, until now, accessible only to a few individuals, is now be-coming normal, generally acceptable – in the developed, “Western” world. We could simply say that we are

Concept Phoenix

lucky, privileged, that we cannot be held responsible if this is not the reality of others as well – but things are not so easy anymore. The exponentially increased MIGRATIONS (for instance) are a FACTOR which is even more relevant from year to year.

“The experience of the Void” is the fundamental experience of polyform, constitutive, spatial trans-per-ception. This is an “in-between”, critical, intra-formal, ab-surd condition of dis-comfort, or even SHORTAGE. The dynamic view of such perception always “floats” from one form to the other, searching, constituting, ex-perimenting and “leaping over the abyss”, since it is only in this way that the view can grasp and connect new semantic or functional blocks. Such method places in front of the individual particular demands. Systems and strategies developed at lower, more restrained levels of perception are becoming spontaneously ineffective, of poor quality, DANGEROUS. I believe ART has a very special role in global events. When I walk through this space, THIS DOOR, I again find myself in front of the white canvas. In front of a new painting, the edges of this format (grief ) are, astonishingly, turning into new potentialities.

In the new, complex, global space, new possibilities emerge from constraints of specific forms. FROM PROB-LEMS! Their power or efficacy can be formed through an efficient contextualization, con-nection, co-de-pendence, in-evitability, and not through efforts to increase the dimension of PROFIT. DIMENSION has its own function. The natural, innate desire for profit remains inevitable, although NATURAL, INEVITABLE LAWS AND REGULATIONS MUST ALSO BE CONSIDERED AND OBSERVED.

In the new, global, CO-DEPENDENT space of organization, an efficient formation begins with the conscious acceptance of the constraint of one single step. To accept THIS (form) as a POSSIBILITY – as an ADVAN-TAGE here, means first and foremost to accept its specific, individual IMPERFECTION. It is precisely in this imperfection, in this “profile”, that the natural functionality of form resides.

At the level of transcendent, polyform, complex, constitutive perception, the so-called CRISIS continu-ously transforms into a CHALLENGE, into GROUNDS FOR A NEW POSSIBILITY. On this path, targets and perfect results are of no importance. Every target transforms spontaneously into a potential of new pos-sibilities, into a new process, into new grounds for upgrading. I’m headed toward a very specific goal, and at the same time, I contemplate everything else. Very often, a new possibility emerges out of an unexpected failure, a MISTAKE. Here I mean a real failure, a real mistake, which is at first, by rule, spontaneously re-garded as unwanted, as apparently harmful. I’m thinking of inevitability, of the “fate” of the unexpected, the unpredictable. At the level of “open perception”, the acceptance of such failure or mistake represents the first CHALLENGE AND TASK. Because this, by rule, first of all surprises and disturbs me, aggrieved, I react emotionally. In such circumstances, I become “explosive”, charged with emotions. I am not mentioning this as an example but as a fact, specificity. The other side of this specificity is passion. I am thinking of my spontane-ous responses to real circumstances. In this context of mistakes and misfortunes, I ponder upon the possibil-ity of transforming the so-called “waste” into new materials.

To be aware of one’s own mistakes, of the painful, unpleasant RAISING OF AWARENESS which later usu-ally “rewards me” in an unexpected, almost imperceptible way, is of crucial importance. All depends on my capacity to accept or reject the UNWANTED, which at first sight might appear HARMFUL.

The visual presence of a contemporary work of art is, today, but one of the levels of its complex organization and message. Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers are charming, in my view, for they hide a soul-stirring story.

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In order to better understand my work, I shall give some information as to how it all began: I didn’t take up painting out of my own desire. At the age of 20, in unexpected circumstances, I envisaged painting as a possibility. At first, the incentives and suggestions came from the outside, from a friend of mine. I needed time, an inner cause. When similar incentives started to pour in from different directions, in different ways, painting found its place in my coun-sciousness as a “category”. Before, I listened to music a great deal, read books, prose, poetry. In my early adolescence, I was very much disappointed by Hermann Hesse and fully impressed by the figure of the rock singer Jim Morrison. I recall the cover of one of his albums (there were records at the time, the title was AMERICAN PRAYER, a progres-sive music with very engaged, revolting poetry), where his drawings were also reproduced. I was contemplating those drawings, expressive, direct and spontaneous as they were. This was a primary expressive figurality, the attainability and feasibility of which I was surprised and astonished by; I thought I could draw something similar myself. Since those drawings were on that specific album, they were extremely precious, yet so close to me. I think that was the time when I realized (for the first time in my subconsciousness) that some values or methods are not necessarily conditioned by specific technical skills, virtuosity or some inaccessible talent – even though they could be very effective and straightforward. But these ideals were also out of reach for me at that time. I remember having an excellent art teacher in the elementary school (the already then well-known academic painter and pro-fessor Alojz Zavolovšek), but I showed no special gifts back then. As a matter of fact, I would reject every incen-tive coming from the outside, be they good or bad, and in particular, if they were coming from school. Today, it is clear to me that if there was something to be expressed through me, then in no case should this happen through school, through “an institution of constraint” (as I saw it at the time). It had to happen otherwise.

When, in July of 1982, I felt the urge to paint, I had no useful experience. As soon as I picked up the paper and paint, I was suddenly driven by a concrete URGE, a desire for CHANGE. At the time, I could find no meaning in life, no reason to undertake any personal effort. I felt like I was being trapped in armour, blocked. But my intuition told me that I ALONE could pull IT down, destroy or break through it; it all depended ON ME ALONE. On that hot summer evening, I used the paint and paper very spontaneously, as they were “at hand”. I recall clearly that my self-conscious-ness of inexperience and ignorance then had no negative connotation for me. I think that Jim Morrison’s drawing remained imprinted as IMPORTANT INFORMATION deep down in my subconsciousness. At that moment, I gave priority to my volition, my spontaneous DECISION. I even remember a few earlier attempts, but not any explicit, clear “FEEL-ING”. If I think better on it, the first step in this direction, towards this volition, occurred a year earlier – in September 1981, at 4.30 in the morning. I was lying awake in my bed, listening to the sound of the awakening town coming in from the streets through the slightly open window, when all of a sudden the consciousness of this awak-ening became astonishingly neat, crystal clear. This consciousness, this feel-ing, was astonishingly autonomous like never before – as if coming from “outside”. It seemed to me that I could see the future as clearly as the past. I wanted to test this right away. I remember getting out of bed, searching for my playing cards and laying them in a row on the table, facedown. I wanted to know precisely if the feeling was right, real. I chose a card (ace of hearts) and then picked a card from the row: it was the wrong one. Nonetheless, the feeling of that clear consciousness remained long after. I dressed and took a walk. I was watching the awakening town when – all of a sudden, I real-ized that ALL DEPENDS ON ME. I realized that GOD EXISTS. I felt it so expressly – but THIS GOD is by no means going to “give me” something without my personal contribution, without a CONCRETE PERSONAL ENDEAV-OUR OR EFFORT. ALTHOUGH EVERYONE MIGHT THINK DIFFERENTLY, AT THAT TIME IT BECAME CLEAR TO ME THAT GOD WAS NOT THERE “TO SERVE MAN”, TO DELIVER GIFTS OR PUNISHMENT FOR SINS – for GOD IS A NATURAL, life POTENTIALITY, A POTENTIALITY OF EXISTENCE OF THINGS, THE ELEMENTAL, PRIMARY CAUSE. He is the POWER OF LIFE. IF I FEEL THIS CLOSENESS AS BENEVOLENCE, AS THE CLOSENESS OF A BEING, THIS IS BECAUSE SUCH IS THE NATURE OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS, FOR I, MYSELF, AM A HUMAN BEING. Again, if I feel THIS closeness as a POSSIBILITY, a CAUSE, then it is up to me as to how I will realize MY WILL.

Concept Phoenix

When, a year later, on a hot summer evening, I was depicting Adam and Eve (after the photograph of a wooden sculpture by the Serbian sculptor Peter Smajić), I didn’t perceive my artistic illiteracy as an obstacle. The act of painting was simple and brief: I used cardboard (100x70cm), black and white car varnish, and two brushes. I worked on the floor, kneeling. Beside me on a chair was sitting my girlfriend, watching me. I knew I had to drag the brush spontaneously and resolutely. For the artistic expression to be expressive, dynamic and vehemence are crucial; I had to trust my interior feeling, my inner urge. At first, I contemplated the photograph (I’d had the book open to that page for days) and then I drew the outlines in black. The figures are united, standing next to each other, head-on towards the viewer. The first move – an American stroke. Eve with her arms around Adam’s shoulder, Adam with his arms around Eve’s hips. The act of painting was so dynamic that Eve dug her fingers like claws into Adam’s shoulder (my friend later commented on this, saying that “Eve holds Adam stronger than he holds her”). Adam’s nose was broken like that of a professional boxer. My layers of paint were thick, rich, the colour mixed on the contours, spontaneously forming greyness. I applied white colour by dragging the brush from the centre towards the contours, which were smooth, uninterrupted. I had this strange feeling as if I had been work-ing with clay, moulding it. The painting was taking shape in front of my eyes so quickly, as if a mystery was being unveiled. I had the feeling that something was taking shape not just in front my eyes, but also inside me! Finally, I covered the background in black. At a certain moment, my friend said that she thought the painting was finished. Surprised, I ceased to paint – I was shocked. I had a very real feeling that something had happened.

Later on, it took me about a month to finish Eve’s face with the small brush, which in the end acquired, unexpect-edly, very Asian features. Compared to Adam’s face, Eve’s was of a very well-defined, smooth, almost dispropor-tionate structure. I intuitively intensified to the utmost the dynamic of expression of the image which, due to its frontal positioning of the figures and the “colourless”, grey coloration, seemed static, dead. The painting was expressive, original, and yet effective enough to stimulate me to start working on a new one. I have been work-ing continually since then.

I told my friends that I was interested in elementary painting. I wanted the painting to “grow from soil”, natu-rally. I wanted a free, sincere, unique EXPRESSION. When my parents advised me to go to school, I sensed this as a DANGER, a threat. I felt that, at last, I was operating with something CONCRETE, something that was only mine, and as such had to remain – untouchable. If anything was to develop out of this or not was to be a result of my decision and my responsibility. That’s how I felt at the time, and I still feel the same today.

Afterwards, I started to make paintings in series. I soon jumped to larger formats and tried “real artistic oil col-ours” on “real”, rough canvas. I needed space for swinging and action and finally I got it. I was asked to BE CAREFUL not to soil the wainscot with paint, but the STUDIO soon started to resemble a slaughterhouse. For the first time, I had the opportunity to swing the brush and feel the paint spontaneously, with no constraint, in a very original way. If art is the expression of resistance to social norms and laws, then this was exactly what I felt at that time.

I would have long discussions with friends about events on the artistic scene. We had at our disposal informa-tion, publications. The magazine of the Belgrade Academy of Fine Art (I cannot recall its name) was very im-portant. The international version of the Italian magazine Flash Art, WAS TO US like the Bible. We visited exhi-bitions and read books obsessively. I had read almost all the books on painting from Celje’s municipal library. Later, I discovered that a great collection of books was held at the American Embassy in Ljubljana, including the monthly magazine SINTEZA (Synthesis), which for the time and for our Yugoslav circumstances was very luxurious, for it included essays and high-quality colour reproductions of the then ELITIST events on the

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American visual arts scene and on art and culture in general. I was so systematic in choosing which books to read that, all of a sudden, the lady responsible for lending books and other publications for free, refused to attend me! That was a painful blow for me. Nevertheless, I think I digested a good three quarters of the book material from that source, which had a great influence on my work. I also tried at the French Embassy, which had a marvellous collection of books, though not for lending. I could go there, but the problem was that I was used to looking at some of the copies of works of art for days and if I couldn’t do this, I wouldn’t even open a book. I consoled myself by systematically “stripping” the municipal library in Ljubljana, and by going regularly (on a weekly basis) to Zagreb where events abounded (topmost international exhibitions were regularly held there, and as I was such a regular visitor to the Strossmayer Gallery in the Yugoslav Academy of Science and Art, I didn’t even need to pay for the entrance ticket). I enjoyed practically in EVERYTHING that was, directly or indirectly, connected with painting: history, naïve art, impressionists, expressionists, Ameri-can abstract painting, movements in France, Germany, Italy, Chinese traditional painting, Japanese art, design, architecture, poetry, ballet. In short, I was “crazy about Art”. I was an ART FANATIC. Also sculpture, information on land art, performances, philosophical and theoretical treatises, exhibitions of renowned national and inter-national artists abounded. Due to these circumstances, experimenting in my studio was spontaneous, relaxed and extremely intense. The strokes on huge formats, contemplation of iridescence of colours, expressive figu-rative art, expressive and geometric abstraction, abstract minimalism (I still keep a lot of these paintings) – at a certain point, I became obsessed with collage. I sold my Mini Cooper, squandered half of the money on drinks with friends, and with the other half I bought a pile of colour collage paper in Ljubljana. The floor of my studio was covered in collage paper cut into pieces. I used to prefer PRIMARY, ELEMENTAL, RADIANT COLOURS. I would enjoy contemplating the intensive relationships between different forms and colours, shifting pieces of collage, observing – not gluing much. By chance, I ran into an issue of ARTISTIC COMPOSITION and asked the academic painter Avgust Lavrenčič to mentor me. I turned to him, for he was the greatest authority (as far as painting is concerned) in town.

I was not focused on one method or style alone. At first, I was enticed by different possibilities of ap-proaches and ways of expression. I recall that what attracted me most to Lavrenčič was his strategy of re-flection, his cogent, extremely disciplined, “architectonically founded” method which differed greatly from mine. He would pay full attention to me, understand my needs and offer me exhaustive information on disci-pline, techniques and “metier”. He would recommend different books to me and warn me against inevitable traps and risks. He was uncompromisingly sincere, which proved really useful for me. Although eventually he would visit me often in my studio, I had to implore him for a long time before it happened. We would then dis-cuss my paintings, and he would point his finger to mistakes I had made. When he invited me to his studio, it felt like a festivity for me. He understood my reasons and endeavours. He stimulated me and warned me that mine was not going to be an easy path to follow.

At that time, art was for me but a marginal experience. Or better, a state of obsession. Although I knew the risk I was taking, I veered towards the extremity, the margin, both in my work and my life. At first, it was only a premonition that my artification must reflect both levels. In painting, I was fascinated by the abstracted, transformed “documentation” of the real world. I was well aware of the difference between illustration and artification. The latter was (and still is!) fascinating because of the “delayed”, “deviated” or transformed pro-jection (with regard to reality). Today, this seems logical, transparent to me, though at that time, this was not the case. I felt SOMETHING was “at hand”, so close, almost there in front of me, but as I would try to give THAT SOMETHING a concrete, definite form, it would go up in smoke. The only solution was to start working, ex-perimenting. I needed to be confident in my abilities and build on that confidence. Also, there were visions and

Concept Phoenix

there were “signs”, which was rather stimulating for me. There was a concrete, natural course of events, giving me the sign that painting was the right choice for me.

I was bewitched by art for its adventurousness. At first, I was fascinated by the phenomenon of the unrestrained, vehement experience of colour. As there were no constraints, no obstacles, I soon ran into inertia. The reason lie in overproduction, leading to inflation, depreciation. This was a painful blow for me. It became clear that putting too much effort in art could result in exploitation. My mentor advised me to contemplate the painting. And I no longer just painted, but started to think about the painting as well. My mentor basically made me ex-perience the discipline of art as poetry. I was ready to do ANYTHING that would allow me to work continu-ously, and if necessary, I was even ready to take up a job as a security guard, which later turned out to be a good choice. Without that job, this theory would not have seen the light of day.

Contemplation became of equal importance to painting. As time passed, I acquired skills that opened up new possibilities – and risks as well. I realized that every potentiality has its risks. Every strategy or decision can be acceptable or useful only on a certain condition. Every move or structure is imbued with negative poles. If I am to experience art as freedom, I need to experience it also as discipline.

I learned from mistakes – and I still do. The difference may be in that I don’t regard mistakes as negative fac-tors! I accept everything (directly or indirectly) concerning my work as a possible part of a constitutive forma-tion, as potential material.

My work is not about depiction or reconstruction of the visible work, but rather it is about personal transforma-tion of life experience. I like to paint “spatial illusions”, but this space by rule is not constructed on the principle of a renaissance, perspective pyramid. Often, these spatial illusions are made by the modelling of forms and choice of colour. I paint in layers, thinking of how to stratify the pictorial field. I enjoy “stretching” the forms, observing the optical transformation of colour matter. I like to use strong contrasts; dynamics and rhythms play a significant role in my paintings. My paintings are powerful – many may even find them too powerful (too colourful, maybe even “kitschy”). I usually use the drawing as my point of departure, as a base of the painting. I can’t stand preliminary sketching and copying from the original. It is precisely due to this urge for IMME-DIATENESS in painting that I hate graphic arts. In paintings, textures develop spontaneously, they come as a result “of work in process”. I prefer textures that are not simulated. If, for example, Picasso’s artification is based on deformation, distortion (of nature), then my painting is based on recognition. If he painted nature, I paint from nature. I chose this powerful comparison because I couldn’t express it otherwise.

Painting for me is a (limited) artifact in the becoming. I am not a philosopher! I am an artist-analyst. I chose to become an artist due to my enduring fascination by the nature of life and its phenomena: coincidence, fra-gility, transitoriness. This fascination is so intensive that I cannot experience it only passively, as a beholder. Rather, I feel an urge for active part-icipation.

In order to understand my work, I need to experience NATURE as a BEING. I ponder upon the complex, beautiful universe of ineffable capacities and potentialities. The essence of this universe is of a complex, material-immaterial nature. I believe in the existence of a spiritual capacity, a “principle of coordination” in the universe that I experience (transcendentally, through the “point of the universal essence” of the nature of things) as hyper-intellect. I see art as a possibility to establish a creative dialogue with this being.

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PROVOLUTIONARY PERCEPTION OF AN ARTWORK IN CONTEMPORARY POLYFORM CONTEXTFROM THE LETTER TO AISLING O’BRIEN

“... I was told that you were interested in the origin of the term Provolution. It is as simple as this: the term was used by the well-known Slovenian psychologist and psychiatrist Dr. Anton Trstenjak in his book Psihologija ustvarjalnosti (Psychology of Creativity). I can’t say if he was the first to invent the term (he may well have taken it from some other source), but in his context, he applied it with reference to the human psyche. Let me quote a paragraph from his book Psihologija ustvarjalnosti, p. 94: “The human being, with his cognitive and intellectual function, finds himself spontaneously placed in relation to the world, already in the very core of cog-nitive activity, but not as a subject against an object, neither as a mere operator or creator standing in front of his operatum or product, but rather as opponens, or opponent, to which the world represents an oppositum, or opposition, hard to adapt to. To say that a human being is “revolutionary” in his cognitive activity is insufficient or even notionally incorrect. Every revolution implies first and foremost a “re”, meaning a step backward. Destroy first and then construct. Cognition, on the other hand, in its transformational and revolutionary attitude towards the world, doesn’t choose to destroy first in order to build anew later, but leaves all unconsidered phenomena untouched as a world of potential stimuli for the future. Cognition is neither evolutionary nor revolutionary, but rather it is provolutionary.” (end of quotation)

Aisling! When you were on the working visit to Slovenia and we were on the train headed for Zagreb, I was talking about the concept of provolution in the context of possible, perspective trends in contemporary art. My research has brought me to the following conclusions: modernism, with its strategy, reached the uttermost point of its develop-ment and apparently it was time for radical change. Modernism by definition relies on “revolutionary changes”. Artists and philosophers, for instance, at a certain moment in time “rejected” the established rules and patterns of thought and put forward their ideas by way of revolution. In the phase of high modernism, an intensification (ex-ploitation!) in the exchange of the “isms” took place, bringing about consequences which were astonishingly similar to the phenomenon that the economists term hyperinflation.” (end of letter) I believe that one of art’s main roles is to reflect life, wherefrom art itself originates. I experience such art as litmus paper (used in laboratories for meas-uring acidity or base content of specific liquids). If I accept the view that today art is in crisis and that this crisis is a logical consequence of economic-social-political constellations in the world, then I think the main reason for the WORLD CRISIS lies in the schizophrenic, discordant state or organization of our civilization. On the one hand, there are great possibilities for the privileged, capitalist elite, on the other, there is unimaginable poverty and in-digence. The fact is that today, in the global world, ALL of us are directly or indirectly connected. Of course, we could say that problems of the people from the margin (or e.g. center!), from other parts of the world, are none of our concern, that, for instance, the economy in our country is solid, steady and “rational”, but the global connections and surprising co-dependencies show that this is not the case. This is also why THE WORLD today has come, due to various evolutional, historical and accidental reasons, to an important turning point in terms of organization.

Upon second thought, I can claim that, to date, we cannot talk about an EFFECTIVE CONTROLLED ORGANIZA-TION at the interstate level. So far, the UNITED NATIONS ORGANZATION has tried to set matters right at the global level, but this control has been BALKED WITH SUCCESS BY THE “SUPERPOWERS”, WITH THEIR RIGHT OF “VETO”. THIS SIMPLE “ELITIST PRIVILEGE” OR WEAPON HAS NOT ONLY PREVENTED THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANY SERIOUS DEMOCRACY WITHIN THIS ORGANIZATION, BUT HAS EVEN CARICATURED IT. Considering THIS, I can envisage that the FIRST REAL ATTEMPTS AT INTERSTATE SYSTEMIZATION WILL FIRSTLY HAVE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS AT THIS VERY POINT. ONLY WHEN THE NECESSITY OR CAPACITY FOR A RADICAL REORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS ARISES, WILL THIS WORLD (in my view) BE RIPE FOR A SYSTEMATIC CONTROL OF THE ECONOMY.

Concept Phoenix

Artists are under increasing pressure when it comes to winning recognition and representing their work. This is due on the one hand to large production, which is growing exponentially from year to year as a result of an ever larger number of artists, and on the other hand, there is the viewer, “bombarded” at each step with high-tech spectacle with all sorts of advertisements and consumer temptations. Apparently, different artists from different geographical, economical, social and political environments respond differently. To put it simply, art has lost its orientation, its “point”, which I understand as capitulation. I believe that the potential of global organiza-tion relies on differences and not vice versa! I also believe that today, traditional hierarchical scales of value and meaning are losing their efficacy as a result of indifferent, “linear” privileges and reasons. In the world of global, dynamic hyperstructure, such strategies and systems, due to their unadaptable rigidity, are losing efficacy. New, adaptable, dynamic platforms are gaining ground instead, such as regions, for instance. These are territories which in the past, at the time of the linear debate, belonged to the margin! Such territories can today, in different temporary or even permanent contexts (at the planetary level also!), gain (beforehand) unimaginable function or authority (e.g. Slovenia at the time of EU presidency). I UNDERSTAND THIS OCCUR-RENCE AS A PROVOLUTIONARY CHANGE.

I regard provolutionary change as the natural, spontaneous and logical escape from the “crisis of linear satura-tion”. The power of development on our planet has exceeded its limits, causing linear methods to lose ground. Here, I mean methods which, due to their conservative, indifferent conception, are not capable of considering other, outer, seemingly unimportant factors from which direct profiteering, for instance, is not possible. This results in our planet being saturated with waste. At another level, the provolutionary (inclusive, constitutive) method deals with this waste as POSSIBLE MATERIAL FOR REUSE. I am talking about the strategy which is COMPLEMENTARY, compared to the REVOLUTIONARY one. If in its last, degenerated phase of high modern-ism, the revolutionary strategy was deconstructive at the level of aesthetics (among “intellectuals” of the highly developed world, deconstruction has become a “trademark”, a life style, an entertainment), then I see new, ecological, provolutionary trends as constitutive, as CONSIDERATE TOWARDS THEMSELVES AND TOWARDS OTHERS. The fact is that these methods, compared to the revolutionary ones, are much less attractive and by definition require more effort. In art, for example, constellation and contextualization have become important. Attention is now being given to socially conceived projects which make use of the specificity of art in order to solve critical life and social problems, or at least point to these problems. In reality today, novelty and contemporaneity in art is difficult to understand or identify if we hold on to modernist rules or methods. This is MISLEADING and ineffective. The biggest problem is that today, in art, a large variety of strategies and artifications are represented SIMULTANEOUSLY, making the theory or analysis based on the linear method DISORIENTATED, useless. Without a certain time distance, modernist theory cannot grasp or identify the logic of occurrences.

AS A MATTER OF FACT, THE NEW STRATEGY IN CONTEMPORARY ART IS NOT EFFICIENT IN TERMS OF LIN-EARITY SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS NOT LINEAR. Rather, it is conceived SPATIALLY, in a complex way. If we try to imagine it without a schema and with the help of the inner eye, we can see the planet, two polar circles and a straight line going through them. The spatial strategy functions so as to connect the two circles by way of meridians on the planet surface (with the inner straight line staying in place). This strategy differs RADICALLY from “the linear one” and cannot be dealt with the known theory of interpretation. WE NEED A NEW THEORY, NEW STRATEGY OF THOUGHT. HERE I MEAN A STRATEGY WHICH, AS A “MENTAL TOOL”, WOULD OPEN UP NEW POTENTIALITIES FOR THE KNOWN SEMANTIC FORMS AND FOR AESTHETICS. Of course, an effective analysis of such possibilities would also demand TOP LEVEL EXPERTS. For this reason, I see my self as an initiator, as an animator.

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From the standpoint of revolution, the provolutionary method is inexpressive, inefficient. By rule, provolution cannot occur as an (attractive, spectacular) LEAP or change. Such endeavours are usually “soft”, slow, mostly unattractive, or nearly imperceptible. Provolutionary strategy seeks not only one referential form or method, one target, one way or reason, but it evolves gradually, processually. Different, even the most unexpected, realizations are possible, and efforts are regarded as something particular, limited, co-dependent, incom-plete forms or characteristics. AN IMPORTANT CAPACITY AT THIS LEVEL OF OPERATION IS THE “POSSIBIL-ITY OF CHOICE”. In order to make the right choice, I need to recognize that my possibilities and character-istics are limited, imperfect. I need to be able to recognize my weaknesses and my qualities, and above all my MISTAKES. The basic preconditions for a QUALITATIVE WORK ARE SINCERITY, AND AN AS OBJECTIVE SELF-CONFIDENCE AS POSSIBLE.

The notion of provolutionary change can explain the trends in any field of operation. What is needed though is a proper professional competence. I believe that this notion can be simplified. I also believe in the exist-ence of certain themes and areas which cannot be reasonably defined and analysed outside the frame-work of specific concepts. This is why I conceived this theory as a proposal for a mental tool with which to better understand the world where we live and work.

In analyzing my artistic work, I ponder upon my paintings and their relationship. Diptychs, triptychs and polyp-tychs are composed paintings. I ponder upon the relationship in terms of content, composition and other dif-ference – both at the level of individual paintings and their interactions. I ponder upon interiors, exteriors, layers and a new possible perspective of painting. I ponder upon the possibility of making my painterly experience directly or indirectly useful for other fields of research. I am interested in how a painting and its aesthetics within a NEW, LARGER CONTEXT BECOME DIRECTLY SOCIALLY ENGAGED, despite ITS AES-THETIC FORM BEING, AT FIRST SIGHT, ABSTRACT. I ponder upon the expanded field of the painting, of its complex, material-immaterial CONSTITUTION. I ponder upon the difference between construction and constitution, and above all about new semantic dimensions that such differentiation can contain.

Every painting is a limited form. Only by consciously recognizing its limitation, its particularity (in relation to other paintings and artifacts), can we allow the view to transcend the form of the painting, to transcend into “space”. As a painter, I feel this as a relief. I feel that my relation to the painting is relieved, free. Suddenly, I have at my disposal other media and areas (in art and elsewhere). I don’t perceive this possibility of choice as a dogma, command, a necessary rule or reference.

If potentiality or capacity is a marginal characteristic, then the exponential characteristics are open, com-plex, polyform. I am talking about a characteristic able to deal with many individual forms, features or levels. Provolutionary perception of an artwork in the contemporary, polyform context is one such exponential characteristic.

For the theory or strategy of POTENTIAL ARTIFICATION (the one regarding its artifact in relation to other ar-tifacts as referential, superior, elitist), the EXPONENTIAL ARTIFICATION is inneffective, misleading, “dis-persed”. Exponential artification, for instance, the process of becoming of an artwork is of equal importance to the artwork itself – even if this process is virtually invisible, inaccessible to the viewer. This is a position that opens up new possibilities for artists. In certain projects or contexts, I can also operate from the background, incognito. “Unofficial” artistic action can take place both on the street and in a gallery space, and not neces-sarily all those present need to be aware of this. In fact, this is an open space of unlimited possibilities.

Concept Phoenix

Visual attractiveness or unattractiveness can be misleading today in determining whether an artwork is rel-evant or irrelevant! This fact poses new demands and challenges for the discipline in question. When artistic endeavour is not primarily focused on fast and effective profit-making, art directly reabsorbs pure values.

This is the time for an art of surprise. The problem of interpretation is logical, natural, representing at the same time a NEW POSSIBILITY FOR THEORETICIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS. In such circumstances, different points of view and judgements will help explain better a particular problem, subject or strategy.

Contemporary art has changed from collective, mass trends into partial, particular strategies and endeavours. I envisage a time of new, inconceivable possibilities. In the circumstances of concrete life, this represents a possi-bility for particular communities, cultures and individuals who up to now were excluded due to their difference.

The space of actuality here “opens up”, obtaining a polyform shape and becoming globalized. The centres of power spontaneously transform the function of “vectors” into the function of coordinators or patrons. I ponder upon changes on the scale of planetary statuses and values. I ponder upon changes in art and at the level of the planetary order. I ponder upon changes of statuses of specific geographic areas, political, economic, military or social systems or individuals in the context of a new, global order. I ponder upon the trend, the “movement”, rather than upon final, steady circumstances. And here I have in mind the events which evolve naturally, and (in my view) come as a logical consequence of new capacities of the human mind.

IF REVOLUTION UP TO NOW WAS THE MAIN DRIVING FORCE AND THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT OF OUR CIVI-LIZATION, THEN TODAY I SEE THE NEW POTENTIALITY IN THE PROVOLUTIONARY ENDEAVOUR. THIS FACTS POSES IN FRONT OF ME AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND IN FRONT OF ALL HUMANITY NEW POSSIBILITIES AND DEMANDS.PARABLES ABOUT A TOWN

Jiri Kočica wrote: “Modernist rejection of nature which with Malevich, Kandinsky, Klee was above all an ethical rejection of ideological traditions, merged into a revelation of the depths of the living relationship and genuine presence grounded in the responsibility towards the answer provided by the other (allegories) and answers provided to the other. Understanding the nature of the problem and above all being aware of the possibility for a solution to this problem is, in itself, responsibility.” (end of quotation)

The allegoric structure is problemati c for the modernist interpretation and can be applied as a good exam-ple of the difference between modernist and contemporary interpretative method:

Modernist interpretation can recognize as “relevant” (modern) only one form, content, expression or style. But if such interpretation runs into another equally relevant form, it can only recognize it as a CONTRADIC-TION, as something UNREADABLE.

Craig Owens – POSTMODERNIST DISCOURSE: “Allegorical narratives tell the story of the failure to read... In most allegories, a literal reading will ‘deconstruct’ a metaphorical one... Allegories are always allegories of meta-phor and as such they are always allegories of the impossibility of reading... Modernist theory presupposes that mimesis, the adequation of an image to a referent, can be bracketed or suspended, and that the art object itself can be substituted (metaphorically) for its referent. This is the rhetorical strategy of self-reference upon which modernism is based, and from Kant onwards it is identified as the source of aesthetic pleasure. …[T]his function has become increasingly difficult to maintain. Postmodernism neither brackets nor suspends the referent, but

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works instead to problematize the activity of reference. The result is a theory of Postmodern art as an art whose purpose is no longer ‘to proclaim its autonomy, its self-sufficiency, its transcendence; rather it is to narrate its own contingency, insufficiency and lack of transcendence...” (end of quotation)

Through a polyform, complex, PROVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY OF PERCEPTION, the allegorical structure becomes READABLE, because it is freed from the referential, privileged form. Such perception renders the allegorical structure polyform (as a polyptych in painting, for example). It is precisely for this reason that I view my polyptychs as allegories of life.

Jiři Kočica wrote: “The potentiality of artistic language which takes as its source aisthesis (sensation) is a field where the encounter with and cognition of the state of being in duration can be something apparent and present in all its plenitude and reasonableness. Slovenian language expresses and complements in an interesting way the aisthesis so as to open the possibility of deepening the source of the totality of sensation. Sens-ation as sensing-in-the-presence-of (something or somebody) is integrative in its poetical structure. It is a bond, a confluence of two levels of sensing, for in its poetical (therefore linguistic) sense of the word, it means sensation and sentiment. If sensing (the one that refers to the sense organs) is still a matter of individuals and their biological predisposition, then sens-ation and sensitivity are transposed into the collective field. Such a move points to the necessary existence of the connective motive that trans-forms every situation in which plain sensing turns into sensation – into a new totality. The escape from fragmentariness and instinctive sensualism and the move to the level of whole sensation is, in my view, only possible in the presence of co-sensation, in the possibility of identifying with someone or something, or of feeling compassion. Without this basic possibility for compassion, every expression would be condemned to an essential loneliness, apathy and dumbness, balking the possibility of a new way, not to mention a transcendence of the mysteriousness of the future...” (end of quo-tation) Postscript: Jiři Kočica is a renowned Slovenian sculpture, theoretician and philosopher.Transcript from the Slovenian daily newspaper DELO (Sobotna priloga [Saturday Supplement], 4th December 2004): “Only five years after Günter Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy, by conferring the award to Elfriede Jelinek, paid homage to one more voice from German-spoken literature: “the genre of Jelinek’s texts is difficult to define. They hover between prose and poetry, conspiracy and hymn, theatrical scenes and film sequences. What she has managed to stage in recent years are not characters, but linguistic planes confronting ...” (argument of the Swedish Academy’s decision).

ADVERTISEMENT from the Slovenian daily newspaper DELO (4th December 2004): “EVERYONE IS A UNIQUE CASE. People ARE DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER – luckily! Differences at the work place contribute to a more varied and creative working environment. Evaluation and respect of every person’s particularities is to every-body’s advantage. Therefore, the European Union is striving for improving the laws against discrimination so as to guarantee to every individual that they be treated equally regardless of their race or ethnical origin, religion or belief, individuality, age or sexual orientation. For more information on new rights and obligations, please contact the web page www.stop-discrimination.info. Slovenia adopted the law against discrimination in 2004, and the law on equal opportunities of men and women in 2002. For further information please contact the gov-ernment Office for equal opportunities – telephone 01/478 84 60, web page: www.uem-rs.si.

Viktor Misiano: EXHIBITION STRATEGIES (from the collection of papers from the series of SCCA-STRATEGIES...): “ ... today, artists of different generations are included in contemporary art exhibitions and their participation no longer depends on their status, but rather how they fit into the topic, concept of the exhibition and how tuned they are to the rest of participants. The value of the exhibition is not to be searched for in the adherence of the artists or in their striving to be contemporary, but in the correspondence between their individual unique-

Concept Phoenix

ness and interpersonal polarities – the exhibition is solid, grounded, if it offers the possibility for autonomous communities as large as possible to express themselves – an exhibition must reproduce within itself the mul-ticultural aspect of contemporary society...”( Viktor Misiano is today one of the most eminent, internationally acclaimed Russian art critics, theoretician and curator.)

Charles Esche: THE POSSIBILITY FORUM (from the collection of papers from the series of SCCA-STRATEGIES...): “... we hope that by creating the conditions of possibility within the institution in close collaboration with some people, we are also giving a certain imaginative response to the monolith of the free market, allowing us to envisage it differently. Groups such as SUPERFLEKS and many others from Gwangju are the perfect paradigm of contemporary capitalism. Pragmatic, flexible, fluid and ingenious, they correspond to the profile of good managers. And that’s precisely the point! If we use the tools of capitalism differently, we may find vacuums, holes and inconsistencies; desires that for the time being cannot reveal their names, but upon which we might build different collective ambitions.”(Charles Esche is an internationally acclaimed critic and curator.)

IN THE END, A NEW BEGINNING

The difference between the Revolutionary and Provolutionary strategy of development is a mirror image of the difference between the fragmented and composed image. The river (of art) is the same, the difference is only on what side of the bank (artification or interpretation) do I stand. What is important is that the Provolu-tionary point of view does not exclude the Revolutionary one, although the latter (intentionally or unin-tentionally) excludes the former. In other words: modernist, excluding, subversive strategy is still there (and it will remain), but it will never regain the central, leading, developmental authority, power and relevance as was the case in the past. This theory is based on a practical reason. It happened that, all at once, I didn’t have any useful model or strat-egy “at hand”, and I realized that without such a “tool”, I wouldn’t be able to upgrade my artistic articulation. I needed a USEFUL COMPASS, A TOOL FOR ORIENTATION. At some point, I realized that the intensity of develop-ment in art is so great that known strategies and theories are outdated. At the same time, from the Celje circle of artists in which I worked came a concrete incentive (Thank you, Franc!) to put the idea of provolution on paper.

Obviously, this idea did not spring up overnight. Rather it was maturing slowly, through very intensive debates. As a matter of fact, the urge to change the relationship to the painting became at the same time the urge to change the relationship to the FORM (any form!), to history (all of a sudden, the idea “of the end of history” assumes meaning as the idea “of the end of a particular way of interpretation of history”), to life and to the nature of things in general. I felt this urge as a GLOBAL, general endeavour of our civilization. Being an artist, I noticed this same trend also applied to art.

A distinctive feature of this trend is that this urge and these endeavours are imbued with different intentions and efforts, visions and strategies. This heterogeneity is natural and sound! It is typical – vital. However, we must ac-knowledge that life, due to this heterogeneity, is also very complicated and dangerous, mortally dangerous, just as we must acknowledge the fact that all forms are of short duration, incomplete, constrained and marginal.

THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH RAISING OF AWARENESS OPENS UP THE SPACE AS A NEW POSSIBILITY BEYOND LIMITS.

I would like to thank in particular all those who have contributed to the realization of this idea. Without the de-bates and discussions, this theory wouldn’t be possible.

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Special thanks to Jiři Kočica. Your way of thinking and the idea of sensation came just at the right time in the right place.

Literature:

- Ivan Urbančič-ZARATUSTROVO IZROČILO (ZARATHRUSTA’S TRADITION)- C. G. Jung-MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS- C. G. Jung-ON THE NATURE OF THE PSYCHE- C. G. Jung-MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS- C. G. Jung-DYNAMICS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS- C. G. Jung-PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES- Anton Trstenjak-PSIHOLOGIJA USTVARJALNOSTI (PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY)- Hegel-PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT- Merleau-Ponty-PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION- Boris Groys-TEORIJA SODOBNE UMETNOSTI (THEORY OF CONTEMPORARY ART)- Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt-EMPIRE- Helena Motoh-ŽGEČKANJE UŠES IN KITAJSKA INFLUENCA (TICKLING IN THE EARS AND THE CHINESE INFLUENCE)- Nicolas Bourriaud-RELATIONAL AESTHETICS- Charles Harrison-MODERNISM AND CONCEPTUAL ART- Achille Bonito Oliva-UMETNOST ONSTRAN DVA TISOČ

Concept Phoenix

Depression, 1986-2009, dispersion tempera on paper, 2 x (100 x 70 cm)

Mojca PuncerA CONVERSATION WITH MARJAN KROŠLJanuary – June 2009

The tendency towards dematerialization of artworks taking shape on the path of transformation into a percep-tually expanded process, record, diagram, or mental or contemplative state is one of the fundamental traits of historical conceptual art. Marjan Krošl’s work reflects exactly these formal characteristics proper of conceptual-ism on many levels: firstly, in connection with the research of the status of the painting and in the formation of an engaged subject as a medium for transformation of artistic language in general. Of decisive importance for the formation of conceptual traits in Krošl’s creative process are the influences of the 1970s, the time in which the artist was growing personally and artistically within the environment of the “Celje alternative scene”. His artistic practice has crystallized gradually through the mental-spiritual process into the idea of provolution and into the conception of a theory of an open form.The reminiscences of Celje of the 1970s gave occasion for the present conversation. At the outset, Krošl’s theo-retical-practical formation in the context of the “Celje alternative scene” was also marked by a zone of passage from the limited mental-formal field into the field of an open, dynamic form. The reminiscences of this passage characterized by the youth subculture and progressive rock music bear witness to the fact that the pleasure of creating is not radically contrary to the dominant integration into the symbolic social tissue anymore, meaning that soon the time will come when society will have to face its own previously marginalized movements in art and culture. Krošl’s theoretical weaving is at one and the same time an autobiography, telling in spots the story of its author, as well as an intensive process of introspection, an original memoir unveiling a view of the secret artist’s life. Somewhere in the midst of our conversation, Krošl dwells on his passage into the field of contempo-rary art which, in the context of discourse, is defined by the prefix “post-”. Unlike space-time, which defines the prefix “post-” allowing for a detour from the definite form, for a non-hierarchic confrontation of different forms and for manipulation of these forms, in Krošl’s work, the zone of passage is seen as an expansion of form through a continuous recurrence to the act of painting and writing. In particular, in his writings, self-representation un-folds through the reconstruction of fragments of the artist’s own life in light of the artistic and spiritual forma-tion. From the mid-1980s on, the painterly formation of the so-called Concept Phoenix has occupied the central position in Marjan Krošl’s art. This concept is conceived as a multidimensional and complex practical, mental and spiritual articulation in the becoming, and it finds its articulation in the artist’s theoretical writings, which are in turn a result of his life activity, as the source of his artistic practice, through which Krošl addresses his audience. Important for the process of formation are both the history of art and a series of spiritual elements and mental hypothesis from which, as time passes, the privileged positions of specific discourses that had historically ruled over long periods of time recede. The exhibition project from 2002 (Mestece Celje – Fantazme osemdesetih / The Little Town of Celje – Phantasms of the Eighties) conceived as a continuation of the exhibition of the Celje con-ceptualism of the 1970s (Mestece Celje – alternativa sedemdesetih / The Little Town of Celje – the Alternative of the Seventies, 1999 – Marjan Krošl was one of the main initiators of this exhibition) aimed to reveal the phantasms of artists and the possibility of surmounting them. According to Krošl, the first exhibition can be understood as the forming of the “spiritual space” which allowed the development of further artistic activity. Both exhibitions also aimed at surpassing the marginal positions and at integrating the presented positions in the symbolic tis-sue of society. From the inception of his creative process on, Krošl’s work has not involved the ironical or ludic projection of individual mythology into the public space, but rather a deep faith in the mission of the artist as a medium for mediating ideas which in time have obtained the labels “open form” and “provolution”. He believes these ideas to contribute a new and important subject for philosophy – a subject as a task of thought which obviously failed at some point not long ago.

Concept Phoenix

If we now return to the context of Krošl’s early formation in the 1970s, which was made public “not earlier than” the end of the 1990s, the artist believes that in order to understand this formation, one should get rid of the complex of lateness, for the time must be propitious in order to be able to grasp the ‘open form’ which veers towards tran-scending the detached, introverted, stable and predictable worlds. This opening of form was introduced in art by the big wave of conceptualism which also succeeded in stirring up, to some extent, the dusty dominant culture of the Slovenian space which at the time was grounded in socialism. Through the intermediary of conceptualism, the avant-garde, emancipatory, progressive part of art and culture started to keep abreast of the rest of the world and thus also made a significant step in the direction of forming Slovenian contemporary art. But the question is: Can the contemporaries of that time remember without nostalgia? Is the coming generation, due to the general vanishing of differences in the contemporary, globalized and technology-based society, able to “read” the forms of that time? Are these forms stirred up enough yet to adapt to the new context of comprehension? How are we to understand this retroactive reflective shedding of light on the creativity of that time? Or is this not a linear historical explanation anymore, but rather its transcendence through the cognition that the time is ripe for confrontation with the open, dynamic and semantic multilayered form, both at the level of practice and theory?

Mojca Puncer: We already started our conversation (together with Borut Holland) some time ago in the context of my research of the Celje conceptualism of the 1970s, so for the introduction I prepared a recap of that conver-sation which I am now passing on to you. On this basis and with the help of your theoretical text, I suggest we continue where we left off. Marjan Krošl: I am glad that we are working together again! As you are working on the subject of our last con-versation, I suggested to Alenka Domjan to leave the theoretical part of my exhibition to you. I am glad that you have accepted this task!Mojca Puncer: I could infer from our previous conversation a thematic core which could be complemented with the correspondence interview that you suggested. Alenka Domjan has sent me your theoretical text. On prin-ciple, I don’t mind your asking me questions in return. Our conversation by e-mail can thus proceed in a more relaxed and direct tone. However, it is good to keep in mind that on the basis of this conversation I have to write a text of a certain size and within a certain time limit… Marjan Krošl: I suggest we continue as our collaboration unfolds. I don’t believe that the text should be too com-prehensive. What is more important is that this becomes an ACTIVE, CONSTITUTIVE contribution to the whole – if you were stirred up enough by the subject matter, of course. If you were, then it should be up to you to choose the final form of the text – as it will disclose itself SPONTANEOUSLY through the unfolding of your work.Mojca Puncer: I listened once again to the recordings of the debate we had in January in which you say some things that are crucial for the understanding of the ‘subject’ of my research – the Celje conceptual practice in the 1970s. You also explain that, for you, it was the time of professional formation, intensive absorption of informa-tion and fascination, and that you became a painter as late as in 1982, when you decided to set out on the path of self-education (which you explain in detail in your text). To start with, and considering the fact that I am still engaged with the study of the Celje conceptualism (it is good that the themes are interweaved!), I would like to ask you a few concrete things linked to the exhibition of the Celje alternative scene of the 1970s.– One of your works was already included in the exhibition Westeast projekt / Westeast project, 1985. In the first conversation, you told me that with this work you recorded your statement, but that this was only a ‘pre-formal’ phase. Except from having seen its reproduction and the title, I know nothing about the work. So, could you please tell me more about it? Marjan Krošl: My contribution for the WESTEAST PROJECT was a result of Borut Holland’s incentive. If we consider that that collage is from 1985, obviously I was already engaged with painting at that time – in fact, that year I had my second solo exhibition. I chose the technique of collage because it fitted well with MAIL ART in the context of

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which the project WESTEAST was also conceived. The idea and organization of the project was carried out by Franci Zagoričnik in the DIALOGI (DIALOGUES) (XXI-9), and the project was quite radical and politically extremely subversive for that time. The content and watchwords of my collage were by all means propagandistic, for such was also the spirit of that period, and no one doubted what and how things should be done. It was time for revolution. It is fascinating to think today that a few years later the revolution really happened – and in the most radical way possible. The ninth issue of Dialogues is reminiscent of the single REVOLUTION NO. 9 recorded by The BEATLES for the WHITE ALBUM. It was about propaganda, a call for SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION – which a few years later TURNED INTO CRUEL REALITY. Mojca Puncer: When did you feel the need to represent the Celje conceptual practices of the 1970s in an art gallery?Marjan Krošl: My suggestion to the Celje Gallery to organize the exhibitions MESTECE CELJE I and II (The Lit-tle Town of Celje I and II) came as a result of a continuous dialogue with the then curator Nevenka Šivavec. Our relationship in the period between 1990 and 2000 definitely exceeded the classical relationship between the curator and the artist. Nevenka and I got along well as co-speakers and many things from that source is “con-densed” in my THEORY. Mojca Puncer: Before we dedicate our attention to your theory of open form and the idea of provolution, I would like to ask you to tell me more about the process of elaboration of the CONCEPT PHOENIX. In your theo-retical writings, you mention three fundamental texts, but what about the name for the concept, etc.?Marjan Krošl: The elaboration of the THEORY and the CONCEPT came spontaneously – SLOWLY. This is how I work! I cannot work fast. What I am IN PARTICULAR interested in the art context is DEPTH, INSIGHT, RESEARCH, MYSTICISM. The title CONCEPT PHOENIX (with which all my paintings are signed) represents a SYMBOL, a SIGN of IDENTIFICATION, IDENTITY, VISIBILITY. PHOENIX stands as a symbol of SURVIVING, REVIVAL – the bird that res-urrects from FIRE. I have experienced such a feeling twice in my life at the spiritualist seances where we walked on embers. Today, I am confident that those seances and my visit to the Pleterje Charterhouse in 1985 (where I received spiritual initiation) had a great influence on my later work. I think this and some later events have sig-nificantly marked my life.Mojca Puncer: The theory and the Concept Phoenix involve, above all, artistic theory and practice – unlike the philosophical reflections on art with which I am engaged myself. While reading your suggestive writing which, in my view, can also be seen as a conceptual-artistic gesture (the idea, the concept as a fundamental element of conceptual practice) closely linked to your practice of painting, I thought of how effective theory-oriented thoughts could be if intertwined with biographical notes; together through the unfolding of the process of mental articulation, they basically unveil the secret life of the artist. In philosophy, this is not the case, for phi-losophy offers another view of life from the perspective of a “gallery”, therefore from a distance. It is a tendency towards objectivity that differs from that of your theory. Of course, it is illusive to expect the reflection on art to be completely objective, for both its carrier and its “object” are far too entangled in the ideological tissue of society, in inter-subjectivity, in the networks of numerous relations within the social sphere. The destiny of West-ern philosophy is committed to the mental weaving “in the illusion of the Absolute” where emotion is seen as interference. Unlike the theory of art which in terms of language “dares” to follow the track of feelings, emotions, labyrinths of desires and pleasure …* * * The conception of the theory of open form which follows the path of the so-called provolution gives reason to think! Even more so because this conception is revealed to us through your personal experience. From the perspec-tive of your theory, for instance, my reflection on the so-called “aesthetic strategies” that succeed the revolutionary, heroic modernism seems to be bound to the split to which points, with a great conceptual quandary, the inauspicious prefix “post-”. A different possibility though is opened up by the theory of provolution which gradually, slowly and pa-tiently weaves its thought not in order to destroy but to function as a connective tissue of the composed form. In this process, we can recognize a tendency to co-existence which displaces the split, heals the wound of existence so that it synergically sutures the fragments of our life – the remains of eruption, excess, rupture – in a new whole …

Concept Phoenix

Marjan Krošl: Your thoughts lay open some of the basic points of my work. I will try to answer in sequence: the fact that my work involves both theory and practice of art is not a result of the necessity for “a new artification”. It is simply a result of a “historical constellation of art” – and not only here in Slovenia. Information is easily ac-cessible and we all know what and where something is going on (or we just go and see ourselves). Something CONCRETE happened which triggered the necessity for an analytical reflection – on art. A necessity that de-veloped WITHIN THE ART SPACE. For this to have happened there must have been (I repeat) a certain “historic circumstance” which represented at the same time a POSSIBILITY – and above all a NECESSITY. This could have happened ONLY as a result of the EXPERIENCE offered (enabled) by CONCEPTUALISM (the two conceptual artists with the greatest impact on my work were DUCHAMP and BEUYS) – and on the other hand (simultaneously), the phenomenon of “devaluation” (of form), which didn’t happen by chance. Rather it came as a consequence of an “exponential experiment of deconstruction” (of high modernism) which triggered (in my opinion) irre-versible processes in art and AT THE SAME TIME opened THE DOOR TO PHILOSOPHY INTO A COMPLETELY NEW SPACE which for a long time WE WERE NOT ABLE TO CONCEIVE AS A NEW SPACE – as a space of possibility. This DECONSTRUCTION has basically SAWN OFF A BRANCH (of the static form) ON WHICH WE SAT, and now it is time to THEORETICALLY DEFINE ANEW to which laws we are exposed and how they could BE USEFUL TO LIFE. My experience (as I described it in my theory) is that this is a SPACE that is, contrary to the previous one, FLEXIBLE, MUTABLE, DYNAMIC – to put it in the old modernist terms, it is A POLYFORM space: AND PAINTING IS EXACTLY WHAT SERVES ME BEST BECAUSE THROUGH THE “STATIC FORM” – OF A PAINTING – IN THE POLYPTYCHS AND THROUGH EXPERIENCE OF THE “CONTEXT-CONCEPT”, I can almost with “mathematical” precision ILLUSTRATE WHAT “IS GOING ON IN THIS PROCESS”. As we EXCEEDED THE LIMIT OF FORM (meaning, value, sense), we are now exposed to the CRUEL FACT of the IMEPERFECTION OF EVERY FORM, EVERY STRATEGY, EVERY LANGUAGE, AND ASPIRATIONS FOR “ABSOLUTE” RESULTS ARE NO LONGER “OF PRIMARY CONCERN”. I see the NEW POSSI-BILITY, THE NEW TREND IN “PRACTICING” THE CONCEPTS, CONTEXTS – in our case the NEW REASON OR POS-SIBILITY FOR COLLABORATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND ART. When I realized this, it also became clear that the point is not that artists strive (as much as possible) to become philosophers (and vice versa). WE NEED TO MANTAIN THE DIFFERENCES, SPECIFICITIES OF “OUR TOOLS” (AS MUCH AS WE CAN!) FOR ONLY IN SUCH A WAY WILL WE BE ABLE (TOGETHER!) TO DEAL WITH VERY COMPLEX, NOT TO SAY DRAMATIC, ISSUES OF THIS WORLD. PHILOSOPHERS, ARTISTS, SCIENTISTS (IN COLLABORATION WITH CAPITAL!!!) AND MEN OF RELIGION (WHO NEED TO REALIZE THAT THEIR “ABSOLUTISTIC POSITIONS” LEAD NOWHERE!) – WE ALL HAVE TO FACE UP TO THE “CRISIS OF THIS WORLD” AND START TO SOLVE PROBLEMS AS SYSTEMATICALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY AS POSSIBLE. A NEW POSITION IS INVOLVED WHICH, ON THE BASIS OF EXPERIENCES COMING FROM COMPLETELY DIFFERENT “ABSTRACT” STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES, WILL HELP US TACKLE “PRACTICAL MATTERS” in an “AS-INTELLIGENT-A-WAY-AS-POSSIBLE”. This is what we are doing already. I believe that the time has come for “THIS PROCESS” to be THEORETICALLY defined as well.

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Portrait of the Painter, 1987-2003 dispersion tempera on paper, 3 x (100 x 70 cm)

CONCEPT PHOENIX

Marjan Krošl was born on March 24, 1959 in Celje. He attended elementary school in Velenje where he was taught art lessons by the academic painter Alojz Zavolovšek. Zavolovšek was an excellent pedagogue and this experience left an indelible mark on Marjan Krošl. The School of Photography has remained an unfulfilled wish, while his experience at mechanical-technical school was unsuccessful. He took a job as a technical drawer. In 1982, he dedicated himself to painting. He asked the academic painter Avgust Lavrenčič for mentoring. Marjan Krošl had his first solo exhibition at the Celje Museum of Revolution in 1984 (curator Avgust Lavrenčič), and the second one, again at the Museum, a year later. In Autumn 1985, he went in Berlin on a study trip. Upon returning, he took a job as a security guard, which he still has.In 1999, he was the initiator for the group exhibition “The Little Town of Celje, The Alternative of the Seventies” (Celje Art Salon, curators Nevenka Šivavec and Irena Čerčnik). He took part in that exhibition himself, as well as in the 2002 exhibition “The Little Town of Celje, Phantasms of the Eighties” (curator Nevenka Šivavec) which was held in the same space. Due to very specific circumstances of personal growth and formation, Marjan Krošl then hadn’t held any exhibitions until 2008, when he finally participated in the exhibition “The Image of the Space: The Situation of the Celje Space / Part 2” held at the Celje Gallery of Contemporary Art (curators Alenka Domjan and Milena Koren Božiček).Marjan Krošl regards the expanded space of an artwork as an engaged relationship of the artist to life in every circumstance, at any time. Therefore, exhibitions in the official institutions are for him but a possibility for an engaged activity. Since 1992, Krošl has been working under the name “Concept Phoenix”.

Address: Vodnikova 5, 3000 SI-Celje Contact / e-mail: koncept.feniks@hotmail.com

Picture on the cover and back side: Marjan Krošl, Mikado, 1987-2009, dispersion tempera on paper, 3 x (100 x 70 cm)

Marjan KrošlCONCEPT PHOENIX

CELJE GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY ART