Vesna Bukovec

Vesna Bukovec: Briga me za konec sveta / I can’t be bothered with the end of the world

Exhibition: Vesna Bukovec: Briga me za konec sveta / I can’t be bothered with the end of the world
Venue: Galerija Ravne, Gledališka pot 1, Ravne na Koroškem, SI
Date: 5 June – 9 August 2019
Opening: Wednesday, 5 June 2019 at 7 pm

Curator: Jernej Kožar

Vesna Bukovec, Welcome to the EU, from the series Briga me … / I am not bothered …, drawings on a paper roll, 2018

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About the exhibition

At her exhibition “Briga me za konec sveta / I can’t be bothered with the end of the world”, Vesna Bukovec will present several works from recent years about the issue of the refugee tragedy from the period when masses of refugees crossed Slovenia along the so called Balkan route during 2015/16 and the militant response by the state, which turned the humanitarian crisis into a security one. In her drawings, she deals critically with the rise of xenophobia and hatred within society. In newer works, she deals with people’s apathy and preoccupation with their own lives in consumer society. Vesna Bukovec is explicitly political in her work and does not hide her involvement and dismay.
The drawings are based on journalistic photographs, which are found by the artist after careful research in newspapers and on the internet. Frequently, these are photos that media editors have selected as the representative images for certain events and have therefore flooded the media and entered our consciousness. Vesna Bukovec modifies the photographs twice. First, an ink drawing is created based on the source material and then, the motif is often altered, for example by replacing texts on banners carried by demonstrators.
The drawings are always accompanied by titles, with which the artist gives the images an additional component and emphasises their representational capability, as well as determines the framework of representation. Often, the titles are ironic, thus establishing a certain distance from the events and highlighting inherent powerlessness. Prints from the series “In Search of Freedom (Ecce Homo)”, on the other hand, were created from illustrations for the stories of refugees by Widad Tamimi, which further illustrate the helplessness and the road to ruin of thousands of innocent, displaced and desperate people.

The exhibition by Vesna Bukovec with the same title has already been hosted by the galleries Simulaker (curator Anja Zver) and artKIT (curator Živa Kleindienst).

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Exhibition announcement

Galerija Ravne
Gledališka pot 1, Ravne na Koroškem
www.glu-sg.si
Fb

Opening hours:
Tue, Fri: 2 pm – 6 pm
Wen, Thu: 2 pm – 4 pm

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Exhibition opening
Photo: Dobran Laznik