Slovenia

Utter. The violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope is the project conceived by multidisciplinary artist Jaša to represent Slovenia at the 56th Venice Art Biennale.

Jaša’s installations shape and define the space they create, recognizing it as a malleable and sentient locale. His work in empowered by the integration of media activated by an ongoing dialogue with an audience. The artwork is an open workshop in continuous transformation, both for the performer and the spectator in a sort of architecture of action.

The entire space of the pavilion is used as a concrete space for creative disciplines like literature, photography, architecture, sculpture, painting, lighting, acting, singing, music, and presents these elements as an organic work, with its own structure and integrity. Organized in weekly subdivisions, the piece repeated for the duration of the Biennial.
The architectural structure and its consequence interaction with the performances and the public are leading us to rethink our private sphere and intimacy as well as our fantasies and feelings, which in the today society are increasingly immediately externalized in the public symbolic space.

The project is a workshop of situations, an area of artistic research that nourishes itself through numerous collaborations. The architectural elements that assemble the structure, in fact, encircle an inner space, a sort of agora—the operational and emotional heart of all the activities. The main interest of the artist is to find the right physical composition based on a perceptual and emotional communion with the spectators. Through moving bodies, clashing objects, intonation of texts and association of sounds, the performance itself becomes music: Utter is a dynamic orchestration.

Jaša (b. 1978, Ljubljana) is one of Slovenia’s most prolific and influential contemporary artists, driven by his distinctive interpretations of situation, narrative, sculpture and performance; an artist who transforms spaces into experiences and propels them toward their poetic potential.
He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and has since been a unique presence in Europe’s artistic landscape. In his two active studios in New York and Ljubljana, Slovenia, Jaša has created a unique environment, one which allows him to cultivate contextual and visual eventuality that is integral to his work.