THE BIG SLEEP
April 15, 2005 – May 19, 2005
Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to announce The Big Sleep exhibition by Nika Špan which consists of two segments: a number of paintings with red dots and three installations of slide projections of the sleeping artist herself. In spite of the different formal aspects of the two parts of The Big Sleep series these works are inseparably connected with each other.
The paintings entitled by the number of depicted red dots are made of different techniques. These dots that are used for marking a sold artwork lay emphasis on the values (also the economical ones), which the artist is connected with within the art system, as well as on the intrinsic process of making of the artwork.
Paintings as objects of value/valuation are staying in dialog with the slide projections. A selection of projected slides shows the fade-away state of a person that has been recorded without her knowledge while she was sleeping. With The Big Sleep cycle Nika Špan very clearly demonstrates the presents of both the physical and the mental space, which can never be truly separated.
Nika Špan lives and works in Düsseldorf and Ljubljana. In her work Nika Špan examines given exhibitory and production conditions, which directly tie in with her personal viewpoints and everyday experiences. The artist, often in an ambiguous and self-ironic manner, deals with the sole process of making the work of art, or rather the incapacity of its entire mediation.
The Big Sleep is the first major solo exhibition of Nika Špan in Slovenia long since her exhibition project Sold Works at Mala galerija in Ljubljana in 1998. The internationally working artist has been introduced to the Slovenian public also at Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana in 2000 and at the 2nd and 4th U3 – Triennial of Slovenian Contemporary Art in 1997 and 2003. This autumn she participates in the Projekt Migration at Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne.
On the occasion of the exhibition the gurgur edition has published the work ‘7314 – The Big Sleep’ by Nika Špan.
The exhibition has been made possible in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Cultural Department of the City of Ljubljana.