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
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