Milena Dragicevic

• 11.06.–26.07.2014

Galerie Martin Janda is pleased to announce the fourth solo show of Milena Dragicevic.

The starting point for both the paintings and the prints in the exhibition is Pampero Firpo, a famous wrestler from the 1970s:

“In my early childhood I watched a lot of American wrestling because of my father. Spellbound by its theatrics, there was always a suspension of disbelief that what we were seeing could maybe be true, that in this comical fake there was something tangible, something real. It has become clear to me that painting is much like early American wrestling. It is a gesture, an attitude, a rehearsal, and a performance. Sometimes as a painter I feel like an imposter, a fake. All gestures and marks have been made, understood, we’ve been there done that, yet we continue because as with wrestling painting also must have this suspension of disbelief. That maybe with all the recycled marks and cynical views there might still be some truth there, something to believe in. I think this is where all art sits for me in the anachronistic truthful (and comical) fake.” (Dragicevic)

As in her previous work, the paintings of the Pampero series are a bricolage, an amalgamation trying to capture the passage of possible objects or parts. Dragicevic amalgamates her own drawings, photographs and interventions with other outside sources. She calls her process “silent collaborations but with a tag-team attitude”. The same applies for the prints on paper. Dragicevic uses material from different sources — stills she captures from youtube videos and blow-ups from images found in her used book collection. The images are rendered through the process of rephotographing them with her iphone, allowing for a shift to occur in terms of origin and legibility.

“The artwork should be seen as the expression of an attitude and as a situation specific to a human being. Therefore my paintings should be seen as the expression of an attitude. And as a situation specific to me.” (Dragicevic)