SURVIVALS, RELICS, SOUVENIRS AND POLITICS OF LIFE (FROM THE ARCHIVE OF KVETA FULIEROVA)

Apoteka – space for contemporary art is happy to announce solo project by Petra Feriancova SURVIVALS, RELICS, SOUVENIRS and POLITICS OF LIFE (FROM THE ARCHIVE OF KVETA FULIEROVA). It is the artists first solo exhibition in Croatia.

Curated by Branka Bencic

In her work Petra Feriancova often intervenes in various forms of archives – vernacular, temporary, private, repository of memories, establishing possible forms of organization and interpretation of different materials – photographs, or discarded, forgotten objects. The exhibition at Apoteka – space for contemporary art brings two works – Politics of life (from the archives of Kveta Fulierova) and Survivals, relics, souvenirs. Although from different background, the artefacts are brought together by the “archival impulse” of the artist, present part of their own history, addressing the idea of surviving objects, their fragility, or vulnerability, on the backdrop of historical time and human lives.

Politics of life (from the archive of Kveta Fulierova) unfolds as as form of presentation and interpretation of private photographic archive Kveta Fulierova, wife of the acclaimed artist Julius Koller, exhibiting scenes of their daily life. In this way “The private domestic space becomes a political one; and those everyday moments become historical”, suggests Petra Feriancova. Her intervention follows conceptual practice inherent in Koller’s work, precise visual language and certain economics of expression, by procedures of re-arranging, repetition, re-organization, creating new interrelationships between the appropriated images. Installation of “Policies of life” is complemented by the inclusion of several original works of Julius Koller.

Shaped as a site-specific installation, Survivals relics, souvenirs occupy the shelves and cabinets of Apoteka’s first room, engaging with it’s existing furniture of a former pharmacy. Displaying a range of objects from nature, such as stones and shells, the installation is turning the space in a department of a Museum of Natural History. The artist again engages with protocols of repetition, indexing, groping and rearranging objects, in order to make a temporary collection of selected artifacts.

Appropriation of objects or images from the past unfolds different methodologies, exploring unknown or marginalized narratives. Different practices such as “artist as historian,” or “archival artist” trying to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present creating new meanings and new relationships.