OV Exhibition I No Tears Left To Cry
Opening: Friday, 27 October 2023, 19:00
Location: UGM, Strossmayerjeva 6, Maribor
Curators: Barbara Gregov, Lovro Japundžić, Lea Vene
The exhibition “It’s Okay To Cry” explores the social dimensions of emotions and presents artworks that grapple with various manifestations of feeling in contemporary society.
The increasingly prevalent feelings of frustration, anxiety, or dissatisfaction are the result of the social and political uncertainty and insecurity that characterize the times we live in. We are all, in some way, trying to specify, verbalize, structure, fit into familiar frameworks, connect with previous experiences, or completely rethink this “affective disorientation”, as theorist Sianne Ngai described it. We invent mechanisms and tactics to cope with frustrations and traumas, design tools and discourses to organize our free time, exercise, love life, or daily life in general. Some nostalgically idealize childhood or times that seem more authentic and simpler from today’s perspective. Others escape into nature, explore spirituality or utopias, and some seek meaning in the metaverse.
Affective disorientation may be an individual feeling, but it is a collective experience.
The exhibition “It’s Okay To Cry” focuses precisely on the social dimension of emotions and presents the works of eleven artists who affirm new affective perspectives in the fields of photography and contemporary art.
Some of the exhibited works focus on prevailing negative emotions such as anxiety and dissatisfaction, seeking to unravel and contextualize them, transforming them into visual critiques of reality. In “Fugue”, Nicole Maria Winkler deals with the control of chaos and the attempt to re-establish stability in everyday life. Fugue is a defense mechanism that protects the psyche from painful experiences by blocking certain information. It is also a compositional technique: the artist shapes strange compositions from everyday objects, organic and inorganic materials, creating a soothing microcosm that offers an escape from familiar, overwhelming, or oppressive constellations. In “Limbo,” Sonja Vulpes confronts the psychophysical experience of being trapped in a state of complete helplessness. In a series of intimate self-portraits, the artist portrays her own emotional states of despair, anger, sadness, or fear in a naturalistic manner. “Limbo” can thus be observed as an antipode to contemporary “selfie culture,” which relies on polished photographic images that feign happiness and fulfillment. Jelisaveta Rapaić creates site specific installations and objects that ironically reflect on the culture of contemporary coping mechanisms that help us deal with contradictory feelings and (dis)comforts while simultaneously functioning as sites of relaxation and pleasure.
Some of the artists explore feelings of disappointment specifically in the context of intimate relationships. Sara Pukanić investigates how contemporary romantic relationships are shaped by virtual behavioral patterns. In “I See You”, she examines the consequences of ghosting, the sudden and unwanted interruption of intimate contact. Although intimate in principle, the artwork is critical of inaccessibility, disinterest, and non-communication as common features of contemporary interpersonal relationships, emphasizing the importance of open communication about (one’s own) vulnerability. Similarly, in “Angel of Chaos,” Aurélie Bayad presents digital and material remnants of a failed relationship. Alluding to a toxic power dynamic, the artist asks us to question what really happened and who is the true culprit of the love’s demise, but also prompts us to reexamine our own dirty thoughts and desires and the influence that contemporary digital culture has had on their development. In “The Death of Karolina Wojtas,” Karolina Wojtas, on the other hand, leaves no room for speculation. After diagnosing herself with the “Syndrome of Aggressive Super-Stupid First Unhappy Love,” the artist uses the gallery space to stage her own funeral. Comical, grotesque, and visually playful, Karolina Wojtas’s work not only opens the question of the contemporary economy of love but also gently confronts us with one the fundamental existential questions – the fear of death and transience.
In their works, Lucija Rosc and Matej Jurčević both start from the unreliability of memory and transform their childhood experiences into new fictional narratives. Lucija Rosc plays with the concept of “superposition”, a geological term and method for determining the age of fossils, which follows the rule that younger sedimentary layers are always deposited on older ones. By creating striking visual compositions from seemingly useless or uninteresting everyday objects, in works like “Superpositions” and “Podmet” old ideas and familiar experiences are overshadowed by new and unexpected meanings.
In “I get so lonely, life in magazines,” Matej Jurčević shapes imaginary landscapes using imagery from fashion magazines. While fashion magazines once served as an escape from teenage angst, today they are a starting point for reflecting on the complexity of the relationship between feelings of loneliness, nostalgia, and queerness.
The question of the (in)ability to articulate and represent queer subjectivity and corporeality is also explored by Mara Jenny, Marin Håskjold and Christa Barlinn Korvald. In “just not getting rid of the reference” Mara Jenny attempts an artistic confrontation with the trivialization of the queer experience and the reduction of queer bodies to mere images. By playing with misreadings and fostering unreadability, the artist explores what it means to be at odds with the meanings we carry and those we create for ourselves. In “Butch Don’t Cry” Marin Håskjold and Christa Barlinn Korvald, on the other hand, use the exhibition space to establish a temporary queer utopian landscape. This transforms the gallery into a space governed by principles of support and community, where emotions of loneliness, sadness, and anger instantly evolve into feelings of joy and hope.
Feelings of collective exhaustion, frustration or disappointment may be normalized in contemporary society, but this does not make them natural or unalterable. As the title suggests, the exhibition ‘It’s Okay To Cry’ is an attempt to confront, acknowledge, and come to terms with the sensitive or even painful emotions we all experience, and to artistically explore their transformative potential. We aimed to establish a space not only for critiquing the prevailing sense of hopelessness, but a space for imagining and creating hopeful affective alternatives. We hope we succeeded at it.