[7ica] Vesna Salamon: Ontological vacuum

“The prototype of a motif (breakfast with all other objects on the table) is vacuumed into the plastic and automatically it becomes an artifact of ecological pollution. In retrospect, the motif is with its singularity, content, and physical appearance compression of historical and artistic meaning (as dead nature), and of the making process (vacuum forming). This process retroactively sublimes the whole garrison of the similar plastic progeny of our market: from plasticized tangerine slices to living plants wrapped in plastic. In that way, the process disrupts any possible potential of transmedial aggregation of pollution.
Motif Dead nature is the reconstruction of my breakfast and contains a plate with food and utensils, a cup of coffee, a box of eggs, an artistic magazine, two books, a bowl with fruit, and two house plants. The scene is reconstructed in the plastic form via the termo vacuum-forming technique. During the making process, some motifs were vacuumed from both sides. Newly-made copies are still in 3D but they are hollow and they are just the illusion of their outer form and texture on transparent plastic. They are becoming disguised entities that are detached from the plastic mass only as of the illusion of the original.
Plastic reproductions are precise copies of the prototype’s „spirit“; the original is sacrificed for the sake of their unnatural offsprings and future recursive multiplication of trash. Material „Dead nature“ is the poorest in terms of quality and at the same time most problematic for our environment in terms of quantity. This quantity is the main lesson of the installation.
Focus is shifted from the intimate, personal routine to the group dynamics of plastics which reflects new formal and content dispersion of previous living individual nature into the global problem.”
– Vesna Salamon
Exhibition is opened until 28th of November.
Considering epidemiological situation we kindly ask all visitors to wear mask in the exhibition space.
This project is supported by the City of Zagreb.
Work of GMK is supported by Kultura Nova Fundation, Erste Solidarity Fund, Foundation for Arts Initiatives and INA d.d.