Sentences
JAŠA
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
6:00 - 8:00pm
JAŠA, Sentences, 2019
signs and symbols presents Sentences, video works from 2014 to 2019 by JAŠA, as part of artists & allies II.
Sentences is a video series that JAŠA started in 2014 as an ongoing collection of situations which capture isolated scenes expressed through documentation of a specific action/performance turned into video, where situations entwine with sound, music and spoken words. For each of them, he constructed a situation that consisted of an angle of reality that determined that given moment of his life, to which he reacts in form and action of a (repeating) gesture. These gestures represent the discipline and immediate expression needed when he approaches the urge of a poetical reactionary positioning within a broader context of present tense.
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Comma / New York, 2014, color video, RT 3:03
“Do you know the feeling, when you have to simply do something? It wakes you in the middle of the night; a voice, an image, a sensation – and it demands its materialization, no matter what. This is how Comma came about, and with this one, my series Sentences. Words, sounds, music and images – calling for performing situations. Michele played along, so I had to find the right rubber-like material and carve out our additional appendences. Too much of everything wakes you up, at one point, so just imagine the world as a pocket, turned inside out...”
Performance by Jaša & Michele Drascek
Video & Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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Above All We Are Not Done / New York, 2016, video, RT 3:04
“When you divert outside streams, of which you have absolutely no control, into an isolated, mind-like space, it becomes something else, and nothing at the same time. An aestheticized message of a hidden resistance; a game of colors and meanings it projects. How can a political thought or action become an expression? How can an equally aggressive intention remain within the space intended for forms and ways of expression?”
Performance by Jaša
Video & Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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UNTITLED / Istanbul, 2015, RT 3:13
“It was a demanding task to ask a group of people to execute a performance laying under the installation that consisted of reconstructing the size of the Gallery’s fair booth floor, for three consecutive days, with strict instructions: not talk to anyone, come before everyone else and leave when everybody was gone. The installation and performance was done in the Istanbul Contemporary art fair in 2015, during one of the worst immigration crises, when Turkey and the EU were negotiating a deal behind closed doors, while people waited in inhumane conditions. My participation had no explanation, my work had no public contextualization, besides the Gallery’s pointing at the floor and saying: “This is Jaša’s new work,” just the video we published prior to the opening."
Performance by Jaša
Video & Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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Glare / New York, 2014, RT 5:54
“Rest on me, said a little grey stone.”
Performance by Jaša
Video & Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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Crystal C / New York, 2014, RT 6:16
“We had to wake up really early for this one. It was still night outside. I wanted to capture the moment of the sunrise and the city. Me and the building. As we were driving down to Red Hook, it became obvious that the bad weather will persist, and that we should reschedule the shooting. These moments are never easy, they come as absolute disappointments; as if the investment you made into the calling, has failed you completely. But I still wanted to go on the roof. Still hoping that the clouds would dissipate. On the verge of complete disillusion, that familiar moment happened; when despite the excruciating effort it takes to say goodbye to a vision you fell in love with, you realize you are then confronted with not only another option, but a way more fitting solution. Somehow my initial idea consisted of an idea I was going towards, and the actual gloominess of the grey and cold morning fitted perfectly to what was really going on. Upon that momentary realization, it all came together.”
Performance by Jaša
Camera by Rosa Lux and Matthew McNulty
Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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Abasalon / Ljubljana, 2014, RT 5:00
“Space has never been just material to me, it has always presented a thought, a decision somebody made, before. A thought process, that somewhere somehow got affected by the emotional state, of the person who drew that wall, before I laid my hands on it. The intersection between the physical and emotional became a palpable surface as empty as a blank sheet of paper; an endless effort to imprint one’s voice into the numbness of a cold brick wall, a passion that drives me to somehow go back to that same moment."
Performance by Jaša
Video & Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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Cutting Through the Clouds of Myth / Ulay & JAŠA / New York, 2016, RT 4:19
"It is all there, in the text, as an Hommage; in the images, in the reactions, the interactions... It is a portrait of two artists in a different stage of life and career; the human conditions that drive us, that define us, our ability and inability to participate and truly collaborate.”
Performance by Ulay & Jaša
Camera by Rosa Lux and Matjaž Mrak
Editing by Rosa Lux
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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LIMBO / New York, 2017, RT 4:09
“In 2017 an old new option of being took over, not only the politics of our every day but the very tissue, of how we operate or better, where it all comes from.”
Performance by Jaša
Video & editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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At the Dawn of Yet Another Age of Absurdity: Composition No. 5 / New York, RT 3:18
“Composition projects offered me the chance to travel around the globe, with only my intentions and a suitcase, nothing more, nothing less. It also allowed me to dig into my older work; to revisit certain situations, restage them, reuse them. To see and hear what can still remain on the surface, what keeps its relevance, what continues to echo, until it gets tattooed to the back wall of my mind.”
Performance by Jaša
Camera by Primož Korošec
Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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Venom / New York, 2017, RT 1:55
“Humanity dies in Darkness.”
Performance by Jaša
Video & Editing by Rosa Lux & Jaša
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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At the Dawn of Yet Another Age of Absurdity: Composition No. 3 / Atacama Desert, 2017, 2:39 RT
“What was planned to be two and a half hours long performance in the middle of the Atacama Desert became only forty minutes long. The maximum before completely losing my breath due to the excruciating heat and dryness of the atmosphere. Once I found the structure, my preparations consisted of moving rocks and sand, buckets and buckets of sand. In the middle of the desert. A perfect equivalent to how it felt to keep on working on a text performed already so many times, but still reacting to a persisting call, vibrating in my head. During the process, I realized, something I felt during the preparations, placing the stones on the ground as a reflection of the night's sky constellations, resembled a graveyard, once captured from the camera's point of view.”
Performance by Jaša
Camera by Ewa Ostrovska
Editing by Rosa Lux
Sound & Text by Jaša
Produced by Rarefruits videos
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WRITING JUST ANOTHER LOVE LETTER TO MY CONSCIOUSNESS / Ljubljana, 2018, RT 3:41
“Fade to relevant.”
Performances by Isa Bela Mrevlje & Gašper Dovšak
Camera by Tjaša Gnezda
Music by Bowrain & JAŠA
Sound postproduction by Mario Babojelič
Editing & visuals by Rosa Lux
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JAŠA (Mrevlje-Pollak) was born in Ljubljana in 1978. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, where he now heads the experimental training programs, and has since been a unique presence in Europe’s artistic landscape. One of Slovenia’s most prolific and critically recognized contemporary artists, JAŠA is driven by his rhapsodic interpretations of situation, narrative, sculpture and performance. Through his alchemistic connection with material and content, JAŠA transforms spaces into experiences, driving them toward their poetic and aesthetic potentials. Pushing artistic boundaries through uncompromising vision for almost two decades, JAŠA has created a rich and remarkable body of work that includes multiple critically acclaimed solo shows and projects in Europe and the US. In his two active studios in New York and Ljubljana, Slovenia, JAŠA has created a unique environment, which allows him to cultivate contextual and visual eventuality integral to his work. His latest projects include ULAY & JAŠA /Cutting Through the Clouds of Myth (Kustera projects Red Hook, New York, 2016), UTTER / the violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope (Pavilion of Slovenia, Venice Biennale, 2015), UNTITLED, 2015 (Krampf Gallery, Istanbul Contemporary, 2015) and Crystal C (Pioneer Works, New York, 2014), among others.