Reviews

“The reason we create is to make a legacy that will outlive us, to reach those who might never meet us,” writes artist Jaša in his debut work, an earnest reference guide for aspiring professional artists. With the help of art historian Charney, Jaša touches upon a wide range of subjects, including where to find inspiration, how to exhibit work, and the mindset one should have when deciding to seriously pursue a career in art. Along the way, a number of maxims are doled out. Concerning art school: “Do not mistake life and success at art school for life and success outside of it.” Another grounding lesson is how the medium will always be lucrative, if only for a select few. “The market is ruled by those with big bucks... almost all of that money goes to a tiny percentage of artists.” As a general how-to guide, the work offers indispensable advice; however, its wisdom is still highly subjective. The real strength resides in the autobiographical accounts, as when Jaša recounts the personal highs and lows he’s encountered in an industry that only offers “just a few minutes to demonstrate that you’re worth more.” Written with a dry wit and heartfelt emotion, this will appeal to Jaša’s fans and those dreaming of a career in art.

― Publishers Weekly

A smashing story of how an artist never stops working, always keeps moving, doesn’t allow rejection to define him, and who makes art that finds large audiences against all odds. An every-artist story.

-- Jerry Saltz, senior art critic New York Magazine, and author of How To Be an Artist

Making It: The Artist Survival Guide is a book every true artist cannot but love. It is, of course, impossible to condense the complex process of creativity into the form of “making it” guides that provide ready-made formulas for success, love life, getting friends, etc. – but for this very reason one should do it. This book gives you the freedom to follow its proposals or to mock them – to mock the rules, the rules should be there. If you do not need a “making it” guide for your work, you are not an original creative genius, you are an idiot.

-- Slavoj Žižek, philosopher and best-selling author

Wittily written as an autobiography, this book is a useful guide for any aspiring artist looking to navigate and engage the professional artworld. Through the conceptual lens and story of an acclaimed performance artist, it provides valuable insight into the machinations of the business, critical and social implications of this career path, leaving no stone unturned.

-- Mitra Khorasheh, director, Signs & Symbols Gallery, New York

JAŠA (Mrevlje-Pollak, b.1978) is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Berlin. He graduated in 2006 at the Academy of Fine Arts, Venice, Italy. He represented Slovenia at the 2015 Venice Biennale, and is best known for his in-situ installations and durational performance works, although he cites painting as central to his practice. JAŠA’s conceptual stance is embedded within individual events as an “attitude” towards the use of space, time and presence. For him, a  work of art shapes and generates reality, even though it is ephemeral. He has exhibited widely, in Europe, the US and South America, more recently with solo projects The Monuments (ongoing, 17-chapter project,  Kühlhaus Berlin), Bloom (KC Šiška, 2022), Systems of Revolt, part of L’effet Domino, Manifesta 13 – Les Parralleles du Sud,(La Station, Nice 2020), Church of All, (Museo Civico di Brunico, 2019)  At the dawn of yet another age of absurdity: Composition No. 1 (Tanja Grunert Gallery, New York, 2017), Composition No. 4 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb,2018) UNTITLED,  (Krampf Gallery at Contemporary Istanbul, 2015). In 2021 he published the book Making It: The Artist's Survival Guide, co-written with Noah Charney. 

jasha.office@gmail.com

Luckenwalderstrassse 3

10963 Berlin

@jasha_studio

____________________________________

JAŠA is a contemporary artist who cuts visual arts with a conceptual practice that is rooted in the extensive use of space as a medium and context for either spatial or performing interventions. His approach has elements of polystylism, neo-romanticism and geopolitical consciousness. His work has made him one of the most prominent voices of his generation and altered the art scene in Ljubljana and Venice, propelling him onto the international stage.

He studied painting at the Academy in Venice (Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia), where he graduated in 2004 with distinction and obtained a second stage diploma at the same institution in 2007 (con elodee). Since 2008 he has been heading various experimental training programmes at this institution.

During his studies, he was a member of the international art group, Crash in Progress, a progressive and radical group that established an impressive reputation with art projects that aroused a great deal of attention, namely with Dafne (Venice, 2003).

In 2005 he began his autonomous path. He has a diversified and multimedia practice, based on the principles of “site-specific” interventions and the interconnectedness of creative processes with other participants. Though he trained as a painter, his work combines various contemporary multimedia practices, including visual arts, architectural approaches and principles, sound art and music, performance and more. Over a decade of high-rhythm integrated projects, both alone and with several other renowned artists, he thoroughly transformed the art scene in Ljubljana. He then continued in the same way in project and exhibition spaces around Europe, until his first solo exhibition in New York in 2012.

From 2014 onwards, New York became his second home. There he opened a studio and production base, The We.Are Institute (with Rosa Lux), dividing his time between Ljubljana and New York.

In 2015, he represented Slovenia at the 56th Venice Biennale, one of the most important events of the contemporary art world. There he presented a monumental site-specific installation and durational performance that lasted for 29 weeks (UTTER / The Violent Necessity for the Embodied Presence of Hope). In 2016 he collaborated with Ulay on Cutting Through the Clouds of Myth (Frieze Art Fair, NYC) and had created a durational group performance called The Relations at Frieze Art Fair, London.

In 2017 he started a project entitled At the Dawn of Yet Another Age of Absurdity, Composition No.1 in Tanja Grunert Gallery in NYC that travelled around the globe in varying forms (no.2 at Hop Projects in Folkestone, no. 3 at Atacama desert in Chile, no.4 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, no.5 at Espronceda in Barcelona and no.6 at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Ljubljana in 2018) while working on other site-specific commissioned installations of monumental scope. This included a colossal, multimedia gesamtkunstwerk called Nowhere-Now Here at Art Hotel Piran and It Seems We Did Manage to Get a Grip around Some Kind of a Meaning Lately (with Meta Grgurevič at Viba Film in Ljubljana).

In addition to his art, JAŠA is a mentor, instructor and lecturer.

CURRENT ARTICLES

Art in the Age of Chrises / VERSOPOLIS / June 2017

Post-Olympic Society / VERSOPOLIS / May 2017

Plečnik, Christ, Wire-Walker / VERSOPOLIS, March, 2017

Self-Portrait in the Midst of Performance Art, Part 1 / VERSOPOLIS, February 2017

Self-Portrait in the Midst of Performance Art, Part 2 / VERSOPOLIS, January 2017

8 Tips on Becoming a Rock Star of Performance Art, According to JAŠA by Noah Charney / ARTSPACE, October 2016

How much for the naked staring? Even in the world of performance art, everything has a price by Noah Charney / Salon Mag, November 2016

JAŠA: The Architecture of Resistance by Maura Pelletieri / GUERNICA, May 2016

From Ulay To Jaša: Passing the Torch in Performance Art by Quincy Childes / ARTREPORT, May 2016

The Venice Questionnaire 2015 #22: JAŠA / ArtReview, May 2015

Organs Without Bodies: A Conversation With Jaša by Etan Nechin / Huffington Post, October 2014

SCROLL DOWN FOR ARCHIVE

ARCHIVE OF ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS

Interview with JAŠA by Marjan Horvat (SLOVENIAN) / MLADINA, Februar 2015

Biennale di Venezia. Il padiglione della Slovenia raccontato da Jaša (Mrevlje – Pollak) by Ginevra Bria (Italian) / ART TRIBUNE / March 2015

Marina Abramović's former partner Ulay returns to the stage / The Guardian, May 2016

Ulay Returns to Perform in New York After Decades-long Hiatus / Hyperallergic, May 2016

VENEZIA UPDATES: JAŠA MREVLJE POLLAK RAPPRESENTA LA SLOVENIA by Gabriele Salvaterra (ITALIAN) / ESPOARTE, June 2015

Venice Biennale: must-see art from the 'new east' – in pictures / The Guardian, May 2015

Back to the future: 20 artists from the new east at the Venice Biennale / The Calvert Journal, August 2015

National Pavilions at the 56th Venice Biennale | Eastern Europe / #viennacontemporary Magazine, August 2015

Slovene Pavilion at the 56 Venice Art Biennale / e-art now, June 2015

JAŠA: Utter / Pavilion of Slovenia at Venice Art Biennale 2015 / Vernissage TV, June 2015

Jaša Mrevlje - Pollak: Na polju umetnosti je več kot dovolj dela (Slovenian) / DELO, May 2015

JAŠA / Apnea's Rhapsody by Aimee Walleston / Art in America, October 2012

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss / Art in America, October 2012

JAŠA / Modern Painters, 2012

DAY 134

Within this Touch no. 7

Computer-generated images, print on paper (taken from an old book found in the basement), pencil

13,5 cm x 20 cm

2020

DAY 133

“The rage of the disesteemed is personally fruitless, but it is also absolutely inevitable: the rage, so generally discounted, so little understood even among the people whose daily bread it is, is one of the things that makes history. Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence and is therefore not susceptible to any arguments whatever.”

James Baldwin, Stranger in the Village

DAY 132

DEVOID

and the quiet all

and all, but the quiet

   a hand writes in the sand

»I wish«

says the hand's man

a head nods, and the mouth follows

»I and the quite all«

            hand shakes the body as to protect

the writing in the sand from a slowly blowing wind

»I wish I could«

adds the other hand simultaneously

»Same, same«

adds the voice.

All but follow, the rule of the quiet all. The restless nods, as to protect the others,

All but follow the rules.

            Legs now use the hands man, triggering a walk,

a sort of swag that defines the air, the quite all.

Fingers never rest, as eyes lead the never ending revolution,

The true rebellion.

»Dry.«

            the mouth comments the feel of sand that blew in (instead of a breath)

The man stands and waits, hoping a hand would choose him instead of the sand

            Now the mouth follows

»write on me«           

            and the hand nods, as the head walks, towards the true rebellion

of them all.

DAY 131

 and the quiet all.

DAY 130

I am my own bowl of adoration,

made of so many tiny stones, parts, and pieces.

Times the other looks for a leak,

or waits for drops,

to signal my own separation.

Within, it is dark, 

sometimes, and in parts,

as in, 

within,

any other bowl,

light does rarely caress.

But through cracks, leaks, in even these parts,

I am a bowl of my own devotion,

so scarce, so intense,

that sometimes I simply drown, sink,

mesmerised by the flickering blue lights

of the under-level life.

From a desert I came back, holding an old broken cup, or a bowl,

I picked up from the dust, laying, among many other parts,

Stones, grey, black, reddish or mostly desert-like, moon-like.

I brought back a broken bowl, in two parts,

on one I wrote »adore«, with a burnt piece of wood,

as on the other, part, I wrote »me«.

I am my own bowl of desperation,

holding this two pieces,

oversharing this two words,

as a cry, as a gesture, as a place to be, 

with me,

I am my own bowl of devastation,

in two and more parts,

laying in the middle of this desert,

it is me I picked up,

carrying back,

for others to see,

to participate, to let go,

the whispering wind, hiding in small dark alleys, paths.

A thrust of air, carrying a song of so many faces (with burnt tongues and cut off arms).

What if I am my own bowl, still,

laying in the desert, broken, lost, but close,

closer to you,

I let, what I contain, write for me, write from me, the leaks, the cracks,

under this burning sun,

within this fleeting all, I persist, I resist, I love,

as it writes with water, in the dust,

adore me.

DAYS IN-BETWEEN

DAY 129

DAY 128

O.N.E.

One more step, within this walk, through another day, more lines, and colors, one more leap into this air, light, walking with time, one more stretch of time, one more, more, of you.

by

JAŠA

with

Mark Požlep

photography, action, 6th of May 2017, New York

DAY 127

DAY 126

No mud under my fingernails this time. As all falls flat.
I observe. (in silence)
No mud under my fingernails this time.
Only now, close to a new birth of everything we have just admired, it falls flat. Abandoned and reconquered.
Heavy words fall flat.
 
No mud under my fingernails this time. Just air, descending that familiar road of forgiveness.
 
Still, it is a basement where we rest, relentlessly – as I use this words recklessly, still, silence, nothing, / , bliss,  / , and flat, all falls flat, just flat.
 
Sound.
 
A glass filled with something colored, but she’s drinking it, layer, by layer. I could use a shot of the same, sameness. Notice. This collateral something.
 
We will judge you now.
 
We are making plans now. We are only making plans now
We are only making plans for / .
We are only making plans for / .
 
 
Abandoned and reconquered.
 
 
Loud and heavy is the stupidity infesting this town, descending quickly into our homes, into our lungs. Green toxic smoke is coming out of our mouths. We had rotten fish for breakfast and we will cherish the sour bread of yesterday in the evening. No sorrows, no regrets. Heavy it falls on the floor in front our own feet.
 
We will judge you now.
 
As it all falls flat. It makes no sound. Nobody is screaming. Mouths wide open, but I hear no sound. The image cracks and sand come running into my mouth. Muted.
Silenzio.
 
In the thin air of this flat sounds, emotion persists, illusion resists. We speak to rocks, with rocks, to bones with bones. We continue tattooing hope onto our own bones, drumming our skulls, stretching our fingers deep into the soft tissue of our brain. Deeper in. Still.
 
We will judge you know.
 
Abandoned room high in the mountains with screaming winds outside, we break freshly baked bread, we did, descending the familiar road of forgiveness. He shouts again, gagging, choking. Muted. Silenzio.
 
We will judge you know.
 
Another building comes down, another bird disappears, this now of yesterday, this hole, in and under our floor, this black sky above, and just thin air in between, nowhere to breath nowhere to stand.
We re-invent the air and we call it.
 
This loud, wide open, stupidity, recklessness, this muted violin, this shouting self, this world is torn apart wide underneath our room. This room we fled to, to stay, to leave, to be, to sing, to dance, to cook, to draw, to paint, to love, to make love and breathe.
 
*

DAY 125

‘Where did everybody go?’ A friend asked me.

‘It seemed so crowded,’ I replied.

‘It seemed too crowded,’ I added.

You mean the sound of thunder, the sound of everything, the clashes, the words, the void. The sound of nothing, the nothingness. Emptiness, pulsating, vibrating, the opposite of yesterday’s everything. The loophole, the blackness, the now. The potential and exclusion of now.

I am excluding myself from now, from you, from us, from we, from here.

If I declare so, I seize to exist, to matter, to be, to be loved, to be taken, to be felt, to be complete.

I meet somebody today.

I meet somebody yesterday, in this empty room. I did not meet myself, even if the glimpses proposed so. I met you.

Who is this constant you, you are referring to?

The lines, the line, from here to there, and back and around, running, escaping us, meaning, sadness, all, fever, feverish and all. Let me sing about lost sorrows that abandoned this ship, because of reason that persists. Who else can persist in this madness, this looping of mine, of my own, so extremely persisting that it now has a sound, a sound of a different voice. Not mine, not yours.

A no, a no no, a no day. A day I do not exist.

So, hear me say, this, quietly. Let this nothing talk to you the way it screams at me. Let it caress your neglected ears, let it pour in honey, life, love, words, of quiet and rhythm, that eludes a dance, not forever, only sometimes, here and there. Or here and now.

As moments that touch, they touch back, because you took them in, quietly, slowly, you take them in, drawing an eight in the air, creating a loop that air can only follow.

That air only follows.

The air only follows.

Us.

DAY 124

‘Where di everyone go?’ A friend asked me.

‘It seemed toO croWded, and the attention was taken away from the one action that captured my eye, so I had to re-mix it a bit.’

Days later I traveled to the city of Spoleto and looked for this view, got lost in a secret garden with my doughter and run up a hill in the middle of a summer heat crossing a roman acquaduct. Only a year ago a choir sang Togetherness for twenty-nine times in the piazza Garibaldi in the center of Spoleto at noon.

DAY 123

Going back to that brunch in the mid-80s, to the decadent group of intellectuals in Ljubljana, it definitely seemed like that, and not only to an enthusiastic child. It was mere enthusiasm that fueled that atmosphere, a pure notion of options, options that a creative mind lays down, for yourself, for those around you. Yes, those were different times. It did seem that, despite a potential lack of material goods, intellectual achievements had a certain non-metrical value. And I do not want to glorify the “golden” days of ex-Yugoslavia, even though it does seem that, especially compared to today's inexhaustible dictatorship of individualism and capitalism, socialism was doing something right for the delicate tissue of day-to-day society and community.

An image of measurement, just like the wire walker.



http://www.versopolis.com/long-read/323/plenik-christ-wire-walker

DAY 122

I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
 as I come fearless to taste the greatness
 as I come fear me to taste the greatness

I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
 as I come fearless to taste the greatness
 as I come fear me to taste the greatness

I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
 as I come fearless to taste the greatness
 as I come fear me to taste the greatness

I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
I'm not afraid of you the ghost behind nothing
 as I come fearless to taste the greatness
 as I come fear me to taste the greatness

DAY 121

DAY 120

------ -----

Can a mind be abused, harassed, polluted, fucked, brutally, anal, true, deep and lastingly? We all know some stains are freaking hard to wash off, especially those that did not seem so hard. Sure. But what about this right now, facing the abuser, here consciously taking in a plate of crap, after a plate of crap? A shit cake, a proper shit show, assholes instead of mouths, bursting, blooming like dead birds flying. It seems like only yesterday we did something, we have achieved something, we maybe even learnt something from history (I know I am being super ---------- here) but this, this!?

Are you fucking kidding me!?

Tell me, this a joke, one last HuRAY of the sick minds going down in gasoline flames. The fucked up dance of a melting joker, metamorphosing into his own come. So many good people came down, why doesn’t --? It takes one hand, one trigger; to initiate a thought, a crack of reality, a division into us and them can stop. When did extreme ----------- become a subject of a civilized debate? Democracy is supposed to based on common sense that needs to be fought for constantly, there is no room for re-opening “points of views” on the intentions of the likes of Nazis and co.! We all know what happened, history is made of facts, not "alternative points of views".

One hand.

One man.

One mind.

As there should be one world. This is out last chance, as human beings that believe in history, legacy, and dignity. 

We have all definitely been -----, therefore I call upon my rights!

DAY 119

On a day like this, is cracks all l see, in a moment like this, it is only you l see as my only delight, dream, sight, vision, in this toxic world that only yesterday seemed right. Not far.
Cracks l see, beneath... not even words, on a day like this, in a moment like now... words words words... world, what a waste of breath, our time... why do l need to see this, why l have to witness this, even before it happens, it is descending upon me like a heavy dream, unreal and pulsating, dragging itself like an oily river, of thoughts, minds that use assholes as mouths, this age of endless and toxic mind farts, bursts, puss... blood was and is, in these ears, flooding lakes, as l observe cracks in my scull and around, l hold my head, in my arms like a globe, cold and warm within, still pulsating.
It is me, is this me, this dark matter, this suicide screaming blob, this dark star in my hands, this smile, frozen on my lips, these cracks, it cracks and spills rose water for all of my ancestors, so distant now, l call upon you, hoping you will visit me soon again and you'll give me strength and give me hope, so l'll see you, out of gluttony, l'll chew on this madly, this here, all around, turn it into cement like something l spit out, work it with my finger tips, roll it in, into this cracks, in, out and around.
Blasphemy, blasphemy, an army of thee.

DAY 118

"As it goes around, it goes around"

2016

Cuts from Atlas of the world, paper tape, pencil

DAY 117

No
No
No, I keep saying to myself. This is not true. This is not here, this all, now is simply a no day.
No day, when anger claimed it’s own.
As it hails it’s abyss, claims
I’ll stand right next to it, so it can be witnessed, it will be seen. 
These crimes can not pass unobserved, should not pass unseen. 
What is it to us to say or scream, “I do not want this, I do not like this!” 
I’ll stay close to the edge of this wrong, this dirt, this mad, this gold.
 
We should be mad, we can be mad, O, we can be mad and we can express it in so many ways
(they sing).
Come day, but I will never meet you on your oily field of angst, supremacy, and anomalies, this land, this time of big me, the Me, the control, the “I am”, this luxury all, this I am gold. Become alone, let it consume you, from within, and out. Be excessive in all, in your own bathroom, with your own dirt, your own shit. 
Don’t spray it on me, on this soil, this earth, where you claim that other peoples children will walk and grow too.
We will stand, I will stand, and where I stand, no dirt, not shit will fall on the soil protected by my own feet. This earth we so shamelessly take from and leave giving back only to those who “have” nothing to claim.
 
Yes, yes, yes,
be destroyed; vanish by your own greed,
drown in your own shit, fall down and make no sound, flat, and let me see what grows out of you. 
We should be mad, we can be mad, (they sing).

-- 

JAŠA

DAY 116

UNTITLED, 2016

“We are so many, 

so many here and

so many lost. 

But still we 

shape the air and 

curve the lines, 

as these words should 

never be ignored, 

by none.”

Score by JAŠA for Some demonstrations - a performance project by Charlie Stein, performed at Manifestina 2016, Zurich.

DAY 115 #2

Drawing by Giulio Peirè

New York, May 2016

DAY 115

Sketch for a monument

New York, 2016

DAY 114

Sketch for a sculpture

New York, 2016

DAY 113

Do we talk?

Rarely. There is a lot of fear, and probably too much respect on both sides. Maybe we should get into a fight and just get over with it.

Catching drops of water.

Embrace the air.

“Nobody can do that!”

As a man stepped into a crowded room.

A fight could resolve many things, but it could simply end up into dividing the territory, claiming what’s yours and claiming what’s mine. In a way, this room is too tiny for both of us and probably way too big, vast for each of us.

So water the air.

DAY 112

SPRING SINGLE

Vinyl, white paint, pencil

2016

DAY 111

E:

I’m waiting for this house to be finished, for the beds to be made, for a corner or angle I can lean on without having the wall move from behind me.

The Lovers hold hands, they talk in unison but their voices echo differently.

The Lovers:

Soon you can rest, between I (and I). If we stop now, it will be just another tower of Babel, new walls that separate you (from me). We need to keep opening up, so my voice (and yours) can travel loudly instead of returning only as a faint whisper.

DAY 110

Notes (UTTER / the violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope)

Note 5 / page 22

2015

DAY 109

As a man stepped into a crowded room, he did so,
from a dusty road of self-inflicted memories (he now calls love);
“Here I am.”
The crowd turns and breaks in laughter.
“Everyone says that,” they say together.
 
Another man steps in or better, woman, followed by a man.
“Here I am,” she says.
“Here I am,” he says.
 
“Just another dim place where you’ll hide, covering your face within a casting shadow, dipping your fingers into your crumbled sketch book, writing just another love letter to your conciseness,”
the crowd sings, all in one.
 
First, man starts searching for pockets, second, he reaches out, and she,
opens her palms.
 
Here we are.

JAŠA, 16/02/2016

DAY 108

"It has never been about sports"

Wood, bras nail, pushpins, string

27cm x 11cm x 2cm

2016

DAY 78 - DAY 107

http://www.utter-project.net/venice-diary/#diary-utter

  DAY 77

   DAY 76

Red Hook, spring 2014

Photo by Simone Settimo

DAY 75

Father's office

DAY 74

A normal house with a façade, people, us, engaged. Cars outside, we all came in walking, different rhythms, different sounds. Some soft and almost silent, gliding moves, like the slippers of your lover in the morning, loud, crisp, tango like.

DAY 73

DAY 72

"This is not the season to stay silent," said Etan.

Wood, screws, glue, paint
56cmx48x34cm
2015
 

DAY 71

...

“Lean on me,” he said. And I did, many times. Leaning on him was like trusting a cloud to take you away, and he did. Trusting him was the most natural thing I know, and I did. Loving him was the most comforting thing, and I do. 

Yesterday I caught my echoing voice, and it reminded me of the first time I did hear it, and who's was it. I used my double cassette player, dark red aluminum color, quite cool for that time. The same machine on which I started listening to my first music. I remember discovering that the microphone was that little square hole, and that made me think about the option of the record button. It excited me so much, that it did not take me long to choose the first victim among fairy tale cassettes. I took one long breath, pushed play and record simultaneously, and started talking. That was the first time I heard my voice, out of my head. 

And it sounded like his voice. I run over to my sister’s room, and played it to her as well.

“Is this David?”

Yes he is.

for my dear friend

DAY 69

Sunday pasta

Plate from Flatbush, olive oil, peperoncino, garlic, salt, crushed tomatos, sweet italian sausages from Lorimer Market, fettuccine, basil, ricotta

DAY 68

Chalkboard Notes #1 (ooo)

wooden shelf from Ave. B, parts of old furniture, screws, paint, knife cuts, spakling paste, pencil, chalk, piece of a broken stolen cup

cca. 50cm x 80cm

2015

DAY 67

Sunset light, wall, Bushwick studio

First Thrust

hammer, spray paint, glue, magnet

2014

DAY 66

Studies for horizon

DAY 65

We are children of unlikely parents.

This is our doom and our advantage, sometimes rolling together, mostly,

apart.

We were born and then we got old. In this world, everything is young.

So most of the time we are ashamed that we were born old. 

And now, we are only getting older, like from grey to black, and then to even darker black, to blackness of a black black, black as black, hole that contains another black, hole. Don't panic,

I'm not trying to come on your face with dripping depression, masturbating,

singing, shaking in ecstasy, blowing in and around your ears.

Revolution, Revolution is at hand. 

Just a word, a juicy bite, of a pizza or a taco...a choice, a choice of new color,

new tune, a new rain coat.

We are children of unlikely parents, and we where born old. 

DAY 64

Fade to Relevant

broken table taken from Yohaj's new appartment, glue, wood, screws, pencil, spray colors, acrylic colors, knife

121,5 cm

2014

DAY 63

DAY 62

What is hope, I remember somebody asking.

People like you.

writing, Michele's arm

DAY 61

let me quote a friend, a sweet, sweet soul...

"I’ve wanted to write to you for so long, just write, things that make no sense, words that would make you laugh, small things that would make you stop for a moment and just be… about what was, what is, what will be. How many tracks for how many trains for how many lines in separate directions with how many wagons and oceans of faces, their own hearts, limbs, their pipe dreams and unattainable wishes, and we… in the same wagon with the same view, weaving fears and tangling hopes, goals, visions. The sky seems unlimited but close enough to touch, the oceans vast and dividing but small enough to step over all of them, seasons long but disappearing, moulding us into beterness, wholeness, togetherness and all that because we are."

...new year is not an end of the one passing, most of all, it is not an end, and the new year not necessary a new, fresh, ever amazing begining, clean start...put like this it seems we need to be beginners all the time... and it sure feels good to go on, as well, with all the good and pure things...for example, let's go on,

inspiring each other.

JAŠA

Ljubljana, 24.12.2014

DAY 60

a different day

DAY 59

happy song

a very, very happy song

DAY 58

DAY 57

Run against the wall, again, hit it, crash.

Run against the wall, again, hit it, crash,

run against, again,

again 

crash 

bounce

wishing I would crack, like a porcelain cup

but I bounce, as a piece of rubber, of rubber,

left, right,

left, right, sides of my thoughts, which are the actual walls, of rubber

just like, just like, 

just like, flying. Like scientist studying my shit, that the train ran over.

Lawrence, right?

You are working on Chekhov, but as I know you father was not mentally ill

and after all I have to learn russian.

what if something happens?

what if, nothing happens?

what if, all of it happens?

just like, just like, right now.

DAY 56

Throwing up fire (mistakes)

a mountain comes out,

it's like a face,

or a spinning room,

it's like an image, a loop.

Something that is stuck in my mind,

like a small mistake.

DAY 55

DAY 54

DAY 53

Fade to relevant.

Stones from the sky, 

that crumble into jewels on our heads,

making tea out of water,

shifting pillows for bricks,

in the sandy part of the city,

gentlemen's hands juggling in the air,

like flowers,

those marvelous flowers,

like stones,

that crumble,

into jewels.

DAY 52

DAY 51

DAY 50

Whispering to the embedded human drive:

"Togetherness as a source of energy to convey and channel, reflected by the artistic gesture as a response to the currents and conditions,

 as a threat to the logic of efficiency and success only as and through individual competitiveness."

DAY 49

then I heard the blue cry of my baby bird

DAY 48

DAY 47

DAY 46

DAY 45

DAY 44

DAY 43

DAY 42

DAY 41

DAY 40

DAY 39

DAY 38

DAY 37

DAY 36

DAY 35

DAY 34

DAY 33

DAY 32

DAY 31

GODS CAME FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT

To embark on a project with Mark is more than an adventure. Somehow every time I think about us, our friendship, our collaborations, there is this one moment that pops in my mind. Us, in his black, legendary, old, custom made Volkswagen, hitting the road to Marseille, only 90 km per hour which was the max his old guy could pull of, with 36 degrees outside and in the car, us, loaded with material for our new project/residency, and the machine’s cooling system turned inside, so it was melting hot. We where discussing what we should do this time around, going over all the crazy situational, long lasting performances, actions, objects, structures, installations,…we have done till then. The prevailing driving force then was this unstoppable urge to redefine things. To shake down the structure around us to its' very fundamentals, to it's bare core. There was a lot of sincere destructive force that simply doubled when we came together, raw and wild.

On our way to Marseille, we took a blood oath, so to speak, and we called it Time to Become Poets.

A few years later, when each of us changed, or evolved - this is the better word - into the artists we are today, and I can guarantee you, that this too, is a phase, we decided to join forces again; this time around an idea of a monument to the poets. Tesla was flying around our heads in that period, first it was Meta; during her project in Vienna, I stumbled across a photo of Tesla’s design for the wireless electricity, and it stroke me: “This has to become a monument!”, I screamed out of the shower. Later that day or so, I got Mark on the phone in my enthusiastic drive, firing of: “Mark, we have to nail down once again what we both aim for, to keep on redefining things, not only ourselves!”

Tesla’s story on the outside, is the classical tragic story of the mad genius that in the eyes of today, at the end, failed. “He was not successful, because he was left alone, poor, and lived with pigeons,” many would argue when the topic was brought up, or “He had so many things going on, he could so easily turn them into profitable activities…”

Here I ask you, what the fuck means to be successful? And I honestly do not want to go into the classical rhetorics, into over-criticizing the consumeristic world. But unfortunately still this is the only reason, why a man, that turned everything into giving, and did not pay attention, did not invest his time and energy into securing his wealth, or better, did not use his tools in order to gain wealth, ended up abandoned and used. I'm sure that this concept is not that hard to grasp, actually it is so simple, that it almost triggers a doubt in one’s mind. So if I think again, I should still definitely and fiercely criticize the dynamics that put care of / and for each other, as the last of the generally accepted virtues.

Tesla talked about himself as a poet among scientists, the poet among salesmen of their own achievements. Everything is business today, even friendships. Everything is measured by investments rates, transactions we do, minutes we calculate to spend with somebody, rather then with somebody else. It is true that we are all blaming America for this legacy, but the rest of the world is not coming up with any pressing alternative either. And I don't mean politics; I’m talking about, what also Tesla called the ultimate wireless conductor, communication.

The monument’s prototype has two ends to the antenna, the giver and the receiver.  Only though an accomplished circle a lasting communication can create an “ether”, a worldwide shared creativity, which by it’s definition, is most of all, positive and constructive. A poet excludes violence, his words might be violent, his images, his tune…but mostly they all come from the same place, hope.

I tend to be positive, when I think about how many brilliant minds live today, how many extremely positive thoughts, efforts, sacrifices are shared today (for the pure reason of giving). Determination to keep on trying, even though it seems like standing in front of a lifeless machine, even though our actions may look harmlessly romantic, or charged with words that fill the air with expectations, even though we decide to fight the void, trying to shape it, protect the smallest things that has value, record all the positive thoughts, ours and those written by so many great minds, interpret, reinterpret, perform and even though we decide to invest all of our beliefs into a durational performance, live…we are doing it, because not only we believe that all of these elements do form reality, that is here but because poetry does form reality we want to live, we just have to do it, day by day.

Today is Yom Kippur, and by tradition is the day you take time to clean your self. After 24 hours, you take time to call those close to you and tell them your regrets or feelings, you atone.

I believe in togetherness and I’m grateful that I can share it with so many brilliant people. Mark, thank you for shaping things together; material and us.

Jaša, 03.10.2014

DAY 30

DAY 29

DAY 28

George and his bikes had silver eyes.

I could not tell either they where mirrors or pure silver.

I could not look at them.

I was not that afraid he would see me, as I could not bare the thought to catch a glimpse of me. Why you ask?

Why do birds shit from the sky, in Venice, if a pigeon does it on you, it brings you luck, they say.

Long time ago, I spent a lot of money on a new t-shirt, for a school trip, for a girl to notice me, and in the middle of the St. Marco square, a pigeon did it all over me.

You see.

In this tinderbox days, many things can happen.

DAY 27

Yesterday I observed myself catching a falling cup / #4

found painting at Junk (Williamsburg’s thrift store), knife cuts and scratches, pencil, blue paper tape, finger smudges, double reflective foil, glass, frame, 52,5 x 57,5 cm / 22 x 25 inches

2014

DAY 26

OK,

So, please tell me why,

we all know,

we do know where we came from, and we have accepted  the fact this will not define us all the way,

So,

We all know.

What we like, what we want, what defines us, and who is missing.

The way it sounds to me, it is like we are singing the same song, but for some fuck knows godforsaken reason , we decided to humbly whisper it,

there, in between, right after the shower,

catching the towel and knowing that nobody is listening.

It is so simple,

and, that is so fucking scary.

DAY 25

... " If you add discipline and repetition, a new pattern, a new fragment slowly occurs. And every single new or simply isolated element as a fragment is part of a structure, of a constellation, which presents itself with it’s presence rather then with a promise. "...

  From my notes

DAY 24

..." the necessity to act as a small group of NON-violent guerilla, that uses the power of poetry, the violence of hope, that can occur in poetry, and should never occur in politics "...

From my notes 

DAY 23

Two shots from the studio.

My drawing on a Jean Cocteau's Opium The Diary of His Cure drawing.

DAY 22

DAY 21