The Slovenian exhibit at the 54th International Art Exhibition ILLUMinazioni

What: exhibition entitled Heaters for Hot Emotions
The point of departure for the sculpture exhibition at the Slovenian pavilion will be an ambient production
prepared by Mirko Bratuša for the Božidar Jakac Art Museum in Kostanjevica in the premises of the former
monastery church. The Hypocrites, monumental statues of fired clay, powered by electricity and emitting heat,
with their anthropomorphism and their simultaneously supernaturally fantastic forms, will attract visitors
through the huge gallery window and into the high entrance area, which will be further deepened by mirrors.
This will create a labyrinth for passersby, to whom it will seem as if the path from the streets of Venice lead into
the infinite space of the gallery. The feeling of stepping into a different reality will be enhanced by video
projections of the installation in the medieval atmosphere of the Kostanjevica church. The story will continue in
the upper areas with contrastingly pointed, re-dimensioned and cold statues, which will intensify the effect of the
low ceiling and the smallness of the space. Where the statues on the ground floor will invite us with their warmth
and tactility, those on the upper level will remain inaccessible and foreign in their coldness and severity. The
installation will lure us with its contrasts, and Bratuš’ communicative humour will compel us towards reflection.

The title of this year’s Biennale is Illuminazioni – Illuminations, and it commingles the problem of light with the
theme of nationalism. Light is the thing that enables visual perception. During these times of people’s alienation
from their emotions, awakening is possible through being direct and physical. The statues of fired clay, which
emit heat or cold, affect the viewer through their size and unconventionality. The unusual interweavement of
iconography as would emanate from medieval, Renaissance or Baroque churches, adds a dimension of memory,
which is supranational. This is combined with the concrete lines of the space, e.g. the Kostanjevica church,
which has local coordinates. Not just the lume (light) from the theme of this year’s Biennale, but also the concept
of nazioni (nations) will be visible in the installation in an aestheticised manner, which will be enlivened by
traces of one of Slovenia’s original venues for the exhibition of fine art, and in doing so help promote it.

We will ask ourselves about the nature of art, which through the physical aspect of sculpture returns to the
viewer’s real space, in order to position itself in a newly discovered, freshly viewed physical reality of the world.
The sculptures are made of ceramics and have heaters built into them, and their tactile corporeality will be
enhanced in the installation by light and computer-generated video effects. In this complex manner they unravel
the viewer’s tactile-emotional experience with the additional inclusion of the sense of heat, and
complete the wholeness of the artwork in the fulsome embrace of the felt and experienced. Through the complex effects and
interplay of precarious objects, light, heat, video effects, and playing with spatial illusion, the project will attract
the audience in an innovative manner and keep them in the gallery for a long time. In these times when we are
increasingly enticed by artificial three-dimensional images, by cinematic art, this sculpture project will be an
attempt to return to the realm of lost sensitivity. The statues will be communicators which will use the realm
of art to inform and broaden the audience’s perceptions and shift our social consciousness of being.