Wayside (A performance yet to happen)

External activity |  Wayside (A performance yet to happen) | Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska’s exhibition  | Tobacco 001 Cultural Center, Ljubljana, Slovenia |  24. 10. 2019–22. 11. 2019

Envisioned as a choreographed installation, the project refers to a number of sources including Hansen’s Open Form theory, the composition ‘Novara’ (1962) by American composer Earle Brown and the recreation of clothing left behind in a sketchbook of Antoinette van Eyck, a young student of tailoring in Maastricht in 1935. Calovski and Ivanoska explored Vevar’s archives, preserved by the MSUM+MG in Ljubljana, focusing on the correlation between practical and conceptual usage of the open form as well as on its notion, within the context of the archives, as a form of performative action. Vevar’s archives thus become a reflection on theatricality as a way of manifesting real life.

The exhibition also includes the work 9 Principles of Open Form (2018), a series of posters developed from Hansen’s theoretical and visual principles as well as a series of smaller paintings the artists derived from the field of associative colours and schemes of Hansen’s other major concept—the Linear Continuous System, which was mostly applied to his urban planning projects. In order to offer the possibility of an associative reading of theoretical ideas, Calovski and Ivanoska also incorporated their typography “Archetype Open Forms”, developed in 2017, into the exhibition. Any word or sentence set in this typeface, which excludes horizontal and vertical lines, is simultaneously an ontological and visual explanation of theory as typography.

The proposal by Oskar Hansen, although never realised, still resonates among artists due to the view it presents, namely of the processes that contextualise art viewed through a “transformable exhibition space”. During their analysis, the artists performed, lectured and created numerous content, including a series of original posters that, in their specific way, materialise the programme of the institution. The posters are dedicated to individuals such as Ad Reinhardt, Ana Mendieta, Paul Thek, Susan Sontag, Mladen Stilinović, Dusan Percinkov, Andrzej Szewczyk etc. With every collaborative exhibition, Calovski and Ivanoska activate Hansen’s “conditionally perfect museum” as a socio-political setting designed, in a way, to artistically and institutionally frame and reflect the diversity of the city

https://mgml.si/en/center-tobacco/exhibitions/410/yane-calovski-hristina-ivanoska/?fbclid=IwAR1oXJAx5aq0QOFgayR7WkGghxpDWzKIjf9xiLB8SX_OtnOrjY1hxwkB4Q4