Primož Pugelj: The Beginning of November

At least in one segment, Pugelj’s works flirt with pop art and contemporary formal solutions, even though, as a sculptor and master of the use of a wide variety of materials, he is anchored in sculptural form. It is precisely this space between contemporary artistic approaches and classical sculpture that, in a certain sense, is compatible with the iconography of the mask in a work where the superficial, pop-art and postmodernist agitprop function of contemporary art is connected with deep considerations of the very foundations of art: art as the activity through which we think, feel and embrace visuality in all of its infinite design/linguistic potential ...

Primož Pugelj presents himself with a selection of some of his typical sculptures: masks that are modelled as a gender-indeterminate, emotionally inexpressive face staring into a kind of void, either with open or closed eyes. This meditative, introverted, yet at the same time (due to its emotional neutrality and indeterminable age) indifferent, autarchic passive face appears in his work to a much greater extent than other iconography.

His masks are not the personification of a person or figure in an attempt to ‘represent’ something and thus to function as a particular parable, as is usually the case when we put a mask on our face. On the contrary, the mask is a sculpture in and of itself, and the void ‘behind’ it is crucial. It is not a mask that enables us to ‘drive away winter’, we cannot put it on our face during a ‘masked dance’, and we are not able to use it in a theatrical play or some other form of ritual to escape from what is determined by our being as such.

What happens with Primož’s masks is a display of something that, despite the countless masks from history, has not yet been symbolised, verbalised, staged or depicted. In addition to the expression of a certain emotion, art tries to reach out to the transcendence of naked existence. Being in itself is neither friendly nor terrifying; it is neither an ally nor a guardian to save us from non-being.

In front of Primož’s masks, it is as if we are in some kind of confrontation with this state: torn from the context of utility, neutralised expressiveness and emotionality. The kind of ‘anaesthetic aesthetic’ of these sculptural works is that deep bond that speaks to us from the realm of the naked presence of existence itself, into which it is otherwise very difficult for us to penetrate.

Curator: J. Kočica

The exhibition has been prepared in cooperation with the Ljubljana Fine Artists Society.