Bojan Sarcevic
30th March – 22th May 2004, Tuesday – Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

We are delighted to announce Bojan Sarcevic’s second solo exhibition in our gallery.

In his 76 small collages, grouped under the title “1954”, Bojan Sarcevic engages in a fascinating, calm, at times melancholy interaction with the abstract and concrete concept of space and time.
The artist took photos of interiors, mainly public buildings, schools, theatres, libraries, hospitals, from the 1954 edition of the architectural journal “Baumeister”. Cutting with a precise surgical hand, he extracted the most diverse ornamental structures from these images, which he then juxtaposed and reinserted into the photos.
All these spaces share an air of being brand-new and intact when they were photographed in 1954 shortly after completion in post-war Germany, which was enjoying economic prosperity once again, with the expectation of a new life: none of the chairs has ever been sat upon, no-one has walked up the staircases, there is no trace of a future user. And yet in 2004 the spirit that exudes from these rooms is that of something that has long been set aside, is obsolete, repressed.
The appliquéd ornamental details draw the depths of the photographed space up to the surface of the newly created pictorial work and enter into an artistic contradiction to the viewer’s thoughts and memories. Fragmented as if in a kaleidoscope, elevated into a timeless no-man’s-land, these spaces, which seem to be unambiguously anchored in space and time, become futuristic fantasies of the past, of expectation and downfall.

Through these precise insertions executed with a lightness of touch, this beautiful yet apparently confusing manipulation of images, Bojan Sarcevic focuses on the topic of the difficulties and caesurae keen observers of the contemporary world experience in determining time and space.

Born in 1974 in Belgrade, he studied in Paris. Today he lives and works in Berlin. He is currently exhibiting in the 3rd Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst (to 18.04.2004). From 25th March to 23rd May 2004 his work will be showing as part of the exhibition “Der Auschwitz-Prozess” (“The Auschwitz Trial”)in Frankfurt am Main.
Last year his work “Where The Hand Doesn’t Enter, Heat Infuses“ was selected by Francesco Bonami for the exhibition “Clandestini” at the 50th Venice Biennale. In 2003 Bojan Sarcevic also had a solo exhibition, “Verticality Downwards”, at the Kunstverein in Munich.
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