I Made This

Photo: Jaka Babnik, Božidar Jakac Art Museum archive

Solo exhibition, Božidar Jakac Art Museum, former monastery church, Kostanjevica na Krki, Slovenia

24 September 2021-27 March 2022

The exhibition I Made This consists of spatial works created by Tomaž Furlan, sculptor and multimedia artist, who often addresses the complex relationships between humans, our environment and the everyday banalities. His latest work consists of a series of objects, with which he directly, materially and self-reflectively addresses the social dynamics between the so-called civilised society and its most common accessories. A series of sculptures, installations and spatial interventions created from robust materials, such as stone, terazzo concrete, marble and wood are on display in the Former Monastery Church.

Tomaž Furlan’s artistic practice is deeply interwoven with a humorous and ironic attitude to situations that an individual might face in his everyday life and that he is, in the spirit of the times, forced to solve in the manner of optimal efficiency. In 2005 he started constructing a series of absurd machines that share the name Wear, in which sculptured objects are used as body extremities and elements of set design in video performances. His sculptures and installations question the society of unavoidable effectiveness, in which there is no space for useless objects that do not have a practical and potentially monetary value. Furlan continues to question this topic in his most recent artworks. Within this exhibition he addresses the omnipresent idea of ‘common sense’, which is supposedly the criterion for rationality and efficiency. As a result, he presents seemingly trivial objects, which (possibly subconsciously) govern human lives. In his recognisable style, interwoven with self-irony and distanced from his own position, he exposes the absurdity of objects he created and the ideas that they represent. Due to their questionable functionality these seemingly common objects can be understood as merely (useless) works of art.

Miha Colnar

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