GORAN PETERCOL Doublings

Croatian Association of Artists Dubrovnik, Flora’s Home, Šetalište kralja Zvonimira 32, Dubrovnik

FLORA GALLERY

GORAN PETERCOL

Doublings

19 July-29 July 2024

In general

Beginning… And then I come across some material, for example, a blank piece of paper, a medium, a concept, a context, a previous experience, or something external to art, but which allows me to draw a conclusion that makes sense within art. I approach that encounter not with the knowledge of how to solve something, but guided by the impulse to create, similar to how a trader is driven by the pursuit of profit, I guess. At first glance, it may seem like a minor difference; however, the former confines me within the bounds of my current position, while the latter allows me the freedom to explore all possibilities. The material I work with has a similar kind of complexity as a work of art. Someone shaped that material, it was previously produced from a raw material, it had a format, dimensions... a paper, for example. It could have been introduced into the context of art, as part of an artwork. That's why I could treat my work as a material from which I could start something new, much like starting on a blank sheet of paper. Things have their materiality even without my acknowledgement. Awareness of the tangible materiality of something is intertwined with my perception of reality. By becoming aware of that materiality, I obtain forms for further work. I work with the difference between what (allegedly) is and what I see. Also, what influenced my art is the sense of constraint that accompanies everyday life. I think about time, workspace, money, language... and ultimately about the duration of life. On the other hand, as an artist, I feel that I am giving something to the world with my work. I am also aware that the world is congested with things, and that practicing restraint in giving is necessary for it to be meaningful. However, it is not enough to feel that, but I need to have a method by which this restraint will be put into practice. That's why I adopted some conventions that enable me to control the act of giving within the performance. I am contemplating concepts such as reach, negatives, symmetry, halves... which I use to deliberately limit the expansion of my own work.

Doublings

Besides simple repetition aimed at recreating something, I also use symmetry and doubling. Within repetition, symmetry and doubling, there are ways to direct attention to something more precise. In Symmetries, the axis of symmetry can be replaced, for example, with an object, because the concept of symmetry is based on the understanding that whatever exists on one side of the axis of symmetry is mirrored on the opposite side. That is important. Moreover, in all of this, the axis of symmetry is something secondary, so the drawn axis can be replaced with something that has a shape, or it can be replaced with an object of similar size, without violating the principle of symmetry. Doublings are unpredictable and occur at the moment of encountering matter. When I distinguish things from one another, I set them free from their interdependencies. When I distinguish a glass from its shadow, I release the shadow from the glass that produced it. I change nothing, I leave everything as it was. Sometimes I duplicate the idea, sometimes I duplicate the form, without numerical measures or quantity as my criteria. For example, in Duplicated Reaches, I repeated the reach and its limitation, rather than what originally prompted that reach. In other words, I duplicated the sense of reach.

Goran Petercol

May, 2024

Goran Petercol was born in 1949 in Pula. He graduated in 1975 from the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts and has been exhibiting his work since 1975. He represented Croatia at biennials in Sao Paulo (1994), Venice (1995), and Istanbul (1995). He participated in international exhibitions such as Trigon '89 (Aktuelle Kunst) and in 1992 at Trigon, (Identity: Differenz, A Topography of Modernity 1940-1990), in Graz; Translucent Writings, Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase, New York (1994); Commentary on Europe 1994, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (1994); Honey & Blood, Essl Collection, Klosterneuburg, Vienna (2003); In the Gorges of the Balkans, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2003); Light Art from Artificial Light, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2005); Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, (2009); Negative Space, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2019). Petercol had several solo exhibitions – at the Grita Insam Gallery in Vienna, Gregor Podnar Gallery in Ljubljana, Berlin, and Vienna (2023), at the ifa-Galerie in Bonn (1998), and at the Galerie Stadtpark in Krems an der Donau (2022). He also had retrospective exhibitions: drawings (Unplugged) at the Glyptotheque HAZU in Zagreb (2006); Objects, Klovićevi dvori in Zagreb (2011) and Don’t worry about poetics, it will come on its own at the MMSU in Rijeka (2019). Lives in Rijeka and Rovinj.