“The project Basic Bricks Of Logic 1 is the continuation of the artist’s collaboration with the Vienna gallery Schleifmüehlgasse resulting in the exhibition The Measure Of Profit (2014) and is designed as a minimalist sculpture installation. First and foremost, it speaks to the viewer through spatial physical and visual perception, the content of the message coming to the forefront after deeper consideration. There are two sculptures in the space: two parallel installations from wooden squares and foam. In terms of content, the constructions first seem rather abstract, but after a more careful examination of the installation and the sketches on the walls, it becomes clear that the two objects represent the four key curves of the logic of profit-driven economy. The first set represents the conceptual assumptions of profit logic. The second set shows how it works in practice based on statistics for the last seven decades.
The exhibition is an attempt at making the key elements of the logic that dominates and drives the economic and political environment in which we live immediately comprehensible. The first set represents the curves delineated by the logic in the abstract, conceptual world without the limitations of the real world, the logic being realisable in its presumed form. The second set represents the same curves but in the real world; as outlined in the past seventy years. A comparison between the two sets uncovers the logic’s entanglement in its own contradictions and the limits of the environment.” – galerijalkatraz.org
Julij Borštnik studied sculpting at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design from which he graduated in 2007. In 2005 he received the Student Prešeren Award and the international artists’ Essl Award. In 2008 he enrolled in the postgraduate programme of philosophy organised by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA) in collaboration with the University of Nova Gorica. The main cycles of his artistic creation include The Future Of Work (a series of four feature-length documentaries in co-authorship with Abel Heijkamp), Osnovni zidaki logike (The Basic Bricks Of Logic) – The Measure Of Profit, Schleifmühlgasse Gallery, Vienna, Austria, 2014) and Potencialni Prostor (Potential Space – exhibitions Re-Generation at the Institute of Chemistry, 2018; the exhibition The Path at the Srečišče Gallery, 2013; the exhibition Impulse and Possibilities at the Trbovlje Workers’ Hall, 2011; a performative lecture at the Personal/Collective Festival, 2011). He regularly works with sculptor Katja Oblak in the fields of sculpting and video. Since 2008, he also devotes his time to work and organisation in the field of fine art pedagogics (sculpting, painting, animation) for various age groups. Since 2011, he also teaches sculpting at the Fine Arts Education Centre (LICE) in Ribnica, and drawing and sculpting at the School of Fine Arts in the Nova Gorica City Gallery which he co-founded.
You are kindly invited to the exhibition opening of Julij Borštnik’s Basic Bricks Of Logic 1 on 17 January, Thursday at 7 pm at Alkatraz Gallery, Ljubljana.
On display: 17 January 2019 – 8 February 2019