There is no society without spectacle

Year: 2011–2015
Technique: series of 9 drawings, ink on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm

“… there is no society without spectacle; or more precisely, there is no society without the spectacle of society. … There is no society without the spectacle beacause society is the specatacle of itself.”

Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural

In contrast with her previous works, Vesna Bukovec’s cycle of drawings There is no society without spectacle turns from the individual to the mass. She has exchanged her previously utilised continuous and smooth line of drawing without any illusionistic additions for a less fluent, sharper one. In her drawings, based on photographs found on the Internet, are protesters on Wall Street, spectators at Wimbledon, workers waiting to receive the news that they have lost their jobs, people queuing to buy an iPhone, rock concert visitors, praying children, people waiting to receive their food parcels. It was the most recent protests against banks in New York and elsewhere that encouraged Vesna Bukovec to think about the psychology of the crowd and the roles of individuals in it. She always uses a photograph for her intentionally schematic drawing, the message of which is by all means shocking and bites into the current reality. Any individual is but a part of the society and their behaviour is always submissive to the group. This is of course a completely normal occurrence, for a human is a social being, a socially defined animal. Subdued to these findings is the style of drawings that is close to the one we might recognise from a common user manual, or various warning signs, and is intentionally impersonal and conformed to the mass.

excerpt from the text How far is near by Jernej Kožar, 2011
read the full text here

OWS Protests

Factory Workers

Game Spectators

iPhone Crowd

Rock Concert

School Prayer

Struggle for Food

Zombies at Protestival

Asylum Seekers

Solo exhibition Likovni kritiki izbirajo / Art Critics Select, November 2011: Vesna Bukovec, Cankarjev dom, Foyer I, Ljubljana, exhibition view, 2011

Likovni kritiki izbirajo / Art Critics Select: Vesna Bukovec

Likovni kritiki izbirajo / Art Critics Select: Vesna Bukovec

Likovni kritiki izbirajo / Art Critics Select: Vesna Bukovec

Likovni kritiki izbirajo / Art Critics Select: Vesna Bukovec

Solo exhibition Vesna Bukovec: Drawings, Galerija Domžale, 2013

Vesna Bukovec: Risbe, exhibition view

Vesna Bukovec: Risbe, exhibition view

Exhibition TRANS.form 5, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt, 2015

Vesna Bukovec / Albert Zahlbruckner

Solo exhibition Vesna Bukovec: In če se motim? / And if I am wrong?, Hiša kulture v Pivki, 2015

Vesna Bukovec: In če se motim?, Hiša kulture v Pivki

Vesna Bukovec: In če se motim?, Hiša kulture v Pivki

Vesna Bukovec: In če se motim?, Hiša kulture v Pivki

Slovensko | English
Contact

Vesna Bukovec is a contemporary visual artist based in Slovenia.

She is a member of the art group KOLEKTIVA

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