Ljubljana (SI), 2005
Stone, metal, polyurethane foam
35x40x60 cm
Video performance 5’28’’
WEAR IV
The fourth piece in the series represented a turning point, in which I lost my working space and gained a new one in Metelkova. I had started sculpting a stone clog, which represented the main element within Wear IV, already previously, but the process spread throughout the entire transition period. Following my consideration, I decided that my artwork will be a video performance that would reveal the banality and nonsense of everyday reproduction.
I used craftmanship skills that I have learnt as a child in the family stonemasonry workshop. This time the sole process of creating the exoskeleton was a tedious process of persistency, which at some remote point becomes culture. I attached fasteners made from recycled iron and foam to the sculpted stone clogs, so that the clogs could be attached to the feet. My personal past and present merged in the physical object, however the video performance moved the materials into a new dimension. The object could independently operate as a torture device, as an individual clog weighs 20 kg, but in the video performance the attention was moved elsewhere, onto movement or the uselessness of the exoskeleton. The video performance was recorded in my newly emerging studio. Thus, the video performance has much broader connotations than the sole object of the exoskeleton, for it addresses contemporary economy, the weight of life that we burden ourselves with, etc.
In retrospect I can state that the new period of my artistic participation started to seriously manifest the tendency that was already visible in my first exhibitions. I also responded to the desire of the visitors to experience the use of the exoskeleton. The clogs were chained on Metelkova for a month, and the visitors liked using them. This was followed by exhibitions throughout Europe, where the practice of using the exoskeleton at exhibitions continued.