ANDREJ ŠKUFCA: INTRUDERS, UNINVITED INTO CHAOS

Opening: Friday, 13.6. 2025, Monfort Gallery, Portorož, at 7pm –
Press conference: Thursday, 12.6. 2025, Loža Gallery, Koper, at 12pm |

Production: Piran Coastal Galleries 2024/25 –
With the support: Zavod Projekt Atol, Ljubljana; Galerija New Jörg, Wien; Ravnikar Gallery, Kucca, Zagreb |

INTRODUCTION:
By Mara Ambrožič Verderber, director of Piran Coastal Galleries

With the project “Intruders, Uninvited Into Chaos," Andrej Škufca continues his practice of thematizing the infrastructural aspects of global techno-ecology, where fiction, technological design, and processes of industrial production of synthetic materials are combined in both symbolic and material senses.

Andrej Škufca's exhibition pertains to the program of nationally relevant exhibitions that, in accordance with our museum's strategy, present contemporary Slovenian artists to the public who utilize innovative tools and advanced methods of creation. Andrej Škufca belongs to the middle generation of Slovenian authors who have been distinctly engaged in changes in the field of Slovenian contemporary art for over a decade.

With Andrej Škufca's exhibition, we aim to engage our Litoral public in understanding new approaches in sculpture and spatial projects from a 21st-century perspective. The artworks in the exhibition will explore the apparent autonomy of increasingly globally intertwined systems and their expansion. With references to post-Eastern and post-real modernity, the project will critically examine the role of humanity in the so-called “East."

In his works, the artist questions social and techno-scientific achievements and their relationship to the “digitalized present." As it turns out, technology is increasingly interfering in our lives and transforming them. Due to this bipolarity of the technological revolution that took place in the 21st century, a generation of young visual artists (for example, those born after 1980, who have not had the opportunity to produce major independent exhibitions on a national scale in the last decade) recognizes it as their own and as a fundamental, yet problematic, characteristic of the time in which they live.

For this purpose, in-media workshops will be organized with the artist and various groups, as well as public presentations for the general public. The exhibition, defined as a large spatial installation of exceptionally large sculptures, will connect the space into a network of attractive objects, where large, free-standing, lying sculptures will create an interconnected system.

For this production by OGP, we have collaborated with related centers for fine arts in the domestic and European space (Zavod Projekt Atol, Ljubljana; Galerija New Jörg, Vienna; Ravnikar Gallery, Ljubljana; Kucca, Zagreb), with whom we are striving to have the exhibition “travles" in the coming period of 2026.

The solo exhibition will be on view at the Monfort Gallery in Portorož and the exhibition space of the Loža Gallery in Koper from June 12 to August 24, 2025. The exhibition is curated by the renowned curator Laura Amann.

Andrej Škufca (1987) is a visual artist and a member of the editorial team of the magazine Šum. His works have been presented, among others, at the National Museum of 21st Century Art MAXXI in Rome; Ludwig Museum in Budapest; Nitja Center for Contemporary Art in Oslo; Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova and Moderna galerija in Ljubljana; Maribor Art Gallery; and the 34th Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts (MGLC).

CRITICAL CONTRIBUTION
The exhibition will be accompanied by a critical essay written by curator Laura Amann, which will be published in the second half of May 2025.

Curated by: Laura Amann,
Coordination: Ana Papež |