Meta Grgurevič: Impossible Machines

UGM | Maribor Art Gallery (Slovenia) and Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien (KM— Graz) (Austria) in collaboration with The Marignoli di Montecorona Foundation in Spoleto (Italy) are proud to present the first comprehensive overview of works by Meta Grgurevič. Meta Grgurevič is one of the most intriguing Slovenian artists of the younger generation. In her work she studies and constructs kinetic systems and assembles them into multidimensional settings. Impossible Machines is an exhibition in two parts, running concurrently in Maribor and Graz and offers insights into the work of Meta Grgurevič at an early peak of her career. Selected projects from the period 2012−2019, including productions in collaboration with the Slovene National Ballet Ensemble, Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, visual artist JAŠA, set designer and visual artist Urša Vidic, pianist and composer Bowrain (Tine Grgurevič), and many others, will be on view.

Meta Grgurevič is part of a breakthrough generation of Slovene graduates of Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice during the mid-2000s. Like many artists of this generation, she approaches artmaking as a collaborative effort, incorporating performativity as a key element and shaping artworks into a total experience. Grgurevič is dedicated to a very intimate exploration of art in relation to technology and to the process of materialisation of scientific and artistic ideas, through which she developed a fascination with mechanical systems that create movement, light effects or illusions. Working with experts in the fields of electrical engineering and mechanics, music and theatre, she dissects and deconstructs mechanisms from within and in an almost obsessive manner looks for perfection in the movement and the interdependence of mechanical elements. Over the past decade, the artist has developed a series of highly poetic, fully functioning, impractical mechanisms. Her various kinetic sculptures are tied together by the principle of recontextualising old inventions and ancient knowledge, they function as low-tech devices and are committed to the handmade aesthetic. By introducing sound, video, light, and performance, the artist then places these mechanical objects into poetic kinetic scenographies. The artist’s evocative installations build on the merging of what is incompatible—mathematical ratio, precision, and balance are joined with their apparent antipode—the illogical, the imaginary, and even the incomprehensible. In borderline situations, the artist confronts everyday anxieties and optimism, laws of physics and utopia. The exhibition’s curator, Simona Vidmar: “The works of Meta Grgurevič, with their low-tech, even archaic mechanisms, are reminiscent of the original gesture of modern kinetic art, when Duchamp thought to mount a bicycle wheel on a stool as he found it comforting to watch it spin. Meta’s machines are also immensely comforting, reminding us of something we have always known and reassuring us that the world around us is the way we think it is. Which, of course, is pure utopia.”

Meta Grgurevič (b. 1979, Ljubljana, Slovenia) completed her postgraduate studies in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 2007. Her works have been presented at numerous group and solo exhibitions. She participated at the 56th Venice Biennial as part of the project UTTER at the Pavilion of Slovenia (by JAŠA); at the 13th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, representing Slovenia with the stage design of the ballet performance Tristan & Isolde; at the 30th International Biennial of Graphic Arts with co-artist Urša Vidic, where they received a special mention of the international jury for their project Galanterie Mécanique / Silver Thread; at the 31st International Biennial of Graphic Arts, where her project Timekeepers received the Audience Award. In 2016, she was a resident artist at the Mahler & Lewitt Studios in Spoleto. In 2017, her project Silenzio in co-production with the Slovene National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana opened the 32nd International Biennial of Graphic Arts as well as the new exhibition venue Švicarija Creative Centre. The artist has exhibited her works in Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Finland, the US, and elsewhere.