about the exhibition
International Artist-In-Residence
New Works 05.1
Bojan Sarcevic
Paris, France
March 23–May 08, 2005
about the artistBojan Sarcevic’s poetic works approach a coherent articulation of the global condition of displacement. Through architectural interventions, videos, and collages, his projects transfer forms from one context to another. These pieces create a sense of the uncanny and emphasize notions of temporality and space.
In past works, Sarcevic has formally juxtaposed two cultures by placing Gothic architectural references in one corner of an exhibition space and Islamic patterning in the other; exposed the residues of labor through worn work clothes; and forced a meeting between rival art institutions by applying a photo mural of one's exhibition space to the wall of the other's. With a delicate sculptural sensibility, Sarcevic’s works manipulate expectations to expose traces of social and political history.
Born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, in 1974, Bojan Sarcevic currently lives in Berlin, Germany and Paris, France, where he studied at the L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts. Solo shows include Kunstverein Munich, Germany (2003); Institut d'Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France (2003); and The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland (2000). Group exhibitions include Tate Modern, London, England (2004); New Museum, New York, NY (2004); and 50th Venice Biennial, Italy (2003).
about the project
For his Artpace project, Wanting without needing, Loving without leaning, Bojan Sarcevic continues exploring iconic architectural ornamentation through the tradition of sculpture.
In the space is a single metal object. Thick bars of steel stretch vertically and horizontally to form a U-shaped skeletal structure eight feet tall by ten feet wide. With its rhythmic lines and silent monumentality, the autonomous piece can be read within the legacy of minimalism.
Yet Wanting... infuses modernism with a subjectivity it often avoids. While articulated with clean, spare lines, it is in fact an abstraction of an architectural element from the past. Ideas for the work originated with the steep organic curves of buildings by Eric Mendelsohn from the 1920s, an iconic moment of architecture far-removed from our present built landscape. This connection with cultural history is strengthened through two elegant found/collage drawings of 1950s era women on a nearby wall.
Sarcevic's alternating use of brass, bronze, and copper on the steel structure references another mode of cultural production often at odds with modernism. Joseph Bueys' sculptural treatment of copper and other materials with specific social resonance seminally extended art making beyond the physical and into the social realm.
While physically working with the objectivity of classical sculpture, Wanting... bends conventions. Displacing expectations about such art making, it begins a conversation about what sculpture can and should be.
By Kate Green, Assistant Curator
© 2005 Artpace San Antonio
