David Maljkovic
New Collection
In collaboration with Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam
19 March–9 May 2015
Opening: 19 March, 6–9pm
Blondeau & Cie
5 rue de la Muse
1205 Geneva
Switzerland
Hours: Thursday–Friday 2–6:30pm,
Saturday 11am–5pm
T +41 22 544 95 95
F +41 22 544 95 99
muse [at] blondeau.ch
Blondeau & Cie is delighted to present, in collaboration with Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, an exhibition by David Maljkovic—New Collection. This first presentation of this artist’s work in Geneva follows on from a number of major solo shows, including the recent In Low Resolution at Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
Maljkovic’s work is a highly controlled variant exploitation of formalist concerns. While narrative is the driving element at the origination of a project, the artist’s varied means of visual implementation profoundly modifies and compromises its supremacy. The process of construction within a set of formal directives encrypts the narrative and postulates what Maljkovic describes as a new semantic logic. His overall project is engaged in the variable relationship between form and content in art terms; it is within this relationship that Maljkovic negotiates his formal methods and disjunctive intentions.
Virtually all of Maljkovic’s work is engaged with historical and technological markers that are characterized by situations both local and universal. In each, the erosion and corruption of memory are the subjects that are left for the viewer to re-organize. The subject of defective memory and the use of collage, in its more literal as well as more complex application, is a formal principle for dislocation, subtraction and juxtaposition for Maljkovic’s mythical “missing archive.”
For the exhibition New Collection, Maljkovic deconstructs and revisits a set of his earlier works from the Blondeau & Cie collection, which are reinterpreted to become the source of new works. The artist undertakes to re-read and conjure memories in order to bring together works separated by time span and the evolution of his thoughts.
Querying methods of narration, conceptual construction and presentation have become a central part of David Maljkovic’s exhibitions. His work reveals the processes involved in any mise-en-scène: superimposition, withdrawal, masking, repetition, transposition. He seems to be indicating that memory must be reactivated if we are to regain access to the domain of possibility.
About David Malijkovic
Born in Rijeka, Croatia, in 1973, David Maljkovic lives and works in Zagreb.
Recent solo exhibitions are, amongst others: Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen (2014); Baltic Art Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2013); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2012); Sculpture Center, New York (2012); Wiener Secession, Vienna (2011); CAC – Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius (2013); Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana (2010); Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2009); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2007); CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (2007).
With his work David Maljkovic participated in a large number of group exhibitions, amongst others: Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); Carré d’Art Musée d’Art Contemporain Nîmes, Nîmes (2014); ACCA Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2013); MAXXI Museum, Rome (2013); EFA Project Space, New York (2013); European Kunsthalle, Bregenz (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon, Leon (2012); The Power Plant, Toronto (2011); Wiels Center of Contemporary Art, Brussels (2010); 29th Sao Paulo Art Biennial, Sao Paulo (2010); and 11thIstanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2009).
David Maljkovic is presently part of the exhibition Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection at the MoMA, New York. He will participate to the 2015 Biennale di Venezia in Okwui Enwezor’s exhibition All the World’s Futures.
His work is part of major public collections such as Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA, New York; MUMOK, Vienna; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate Collection, London.
