Perch for parabuteo unicinctus (E. Sottsass)
lambda print
100 cm x 100 cm
edition: 1/5
2010
The print is part of the work entitled 20th Century that represents a photographic series with sculptures, which the artist created specifically for the 6th Triennial of Contemporary Art in Ljubljana. Cibic has worked with a trainer of birds of prey to produce this study of the birds’ movements and their interaction with sculptures which she intentionally made as replicas of some of the most iconic design objects of the 20th century.
The co-habitation of the two elements seeks to promote the analysis of two examples of commodification – architecture of display and the work of art as such. The artist uses the image of birds of prey as a strong leitmotif throughout her practice, as a symbol of shifting degrees of souvenir production: hunting birds were initially used by man to satisfy the basic needs for food, only later did the humankind begin to substitute their value for a cultivated experience of nature, as a trophy and an ornament. People who possessed sufficient power were placing stuffed birds and other animals next to precious and famous art and design objects. Stemming from this fact Cibic questions the status of the work of art, its significance, its policies of representation and its relationship to the spectator.
Miha Colner
The work was exhibited also within the 54th October salon exhibition in Belgrade.
The new series of work from Jasmina Cibic takes as its theme an investigation into the level of meanings of those objects to which the West has ascribed the ability to trigger experience. Souvenirs from other lands, fictional icons, photographs, design objects and obviously – on top of the social ladder of values – works of art, are all instruments that allow the viewer to experience that which is for various reasons unattainable directly, and it is for this reason that a surplus value (mythical, subjective, market driven, aesthetic, political, cultural and ideal) is inscribed within these objects in the first place. Cibic explores the reasons for these shifts in values and the processes and conditions of experience itself under which these are made possible.
The series 20th Century consists of a series of photographs which depict birds of prey resting on what seem to be at a first glance perches. These hunting birds, initially used by man to satisfy basic requirements, only later become bearers of status and a symbol of luxurious pursuit. At this point their owners substitute their use value with that of a cultivated experience of nature. Within this process of shift from utility object to trophy object we recognize a release of sentimental, cultural, social and market value towards the viewer. Perhaps it is for this reason that genuine trophies, gathered on the voyages of the bourgeoisie in faraway lands, are substituted by fake replicas, consumer goods and souvenirs which have none of the real essence itself of the thing which is supposed to be remembered in the first place…
Petja Grafenauer
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, October Salon Collection and the artist
Gift Contract: III-5-288/1/23.9.2014.
Inventory No. 1349
Photo: Courtesy of the artist
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jasmina Cibic (1979, Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a London based artist who works in performance, installation and film, employing a range of activity, media and theatrical tactics to redefine or reconsider a specific ideological formation and its framing devices such as art and architecture. Her work draws a parallel between the construction of national culture and its use value for political aims, addressing the timelessness of psychological and soft power mechanisms that authoritarian structures utilise in their own reinsertion and reinvention.
Jasmina Cibic represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial with her project “For Our Economy and Culture”. Cibic’s recent monograph Spielraum is published by BALTIC and Distanz and NADA by Kerber Verlag and Kunstmuseen Krefeld. More inforamtion at http://jasminacibic.org/