David Maljkovic

16.10.2020 - 05.12.2020

Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Wien / Österreich

PART 1: ANNOUNCEMENT ATTEMPT (May 4)
PART 2: ONLINE PROBLEM OR HOW TO REPRODUCE A GALLERY (May 7)
PART 3: EVERYDAY OBJECT IN THE GALLERY (May 14)
PART 4: SHOW SHOW SHOWROOM (May 21)
PART 5: INTERMEZZO (June 3)
PART 6: POSSIBLE PRESS (June 17)
PART 7: EXHIBITION (October 16 – December 5)

Vienna. The ides of March are here. It’s the 8th day. I’m in the gallery showroom conversing about this upcoming exhibition that you see now. It opens next month on the 16th. It’s Sunday and the gallery is closed.... The office is filled with its furnishings and ephemera. Some works remain on the wall from a previous install. There amidst object troves hangs an antique ceremonial mask. Nearby a strange vintage painting seeks my attention. I look over its small-scale dimensions. It’s a nude. In profile a bold muscular woman sits astride a black and white horse. Her right hand rests upon left her leg, she holds a battle-axe in that hand. She carries a shield on her upper left arm. She is menacing and weary at the same time. She stares down at a lifeless body of a naked man stretched out on his back in the foreground. In the landscape behind the horsewoman are another two more ambiguously naked bodies lying awake on the grass. A gray cloud hovers in the scene.

The classicist looking painting holds my rapt attention. I cannot say why but it seems a trap door leading into my own imagination. Back to the task at hand I break away, the gaze has taken its hold on me as the technicians take me again to the storeroom. It’s a hall of mirrors and odd curiosities are now cluttered in disorder. Everything seems flattened and lifeless. Later, above outside on the empty street in front of the premises I attempt to say something about this exhibition that you see here and now. Yet I am lost for words. Its form has yet to reveal itself to me. It has to be shaped. Everyone breaks for lunch then run off to view a big group show.

I leave Vienna the next day.

Ten days go by. The gallery and I discuss it all on the phone. The show is postponed until at least October. At first I thought we had bought some time then I realized that no, we didn’t. We lost time. That sense of lost time prevailed in me. Its been taken from us I thought. Redundant. And yet, the stream continues unabated and I try putting my finger on it. To give it shape in the nether region of an unquantifiable constellation. It’s true that I observed time did keep flowing in an undefined slow anticipation. The phone discussions continued on. We wished to acknowledge the delayed exhibition and made the attempt to announce it. An enhanced recording of a disembodied human voice, the antique mask, a list of gallery inventory from three previous shows, numerous press material—all appear on the gallery website. The female warrior with battle-axe reappears online too. She remains the enigmatic virtual symbol of this exhibition and the process by which its been enlisted to articulate an unknowable. She is the crux of the matter and the numerical key to all textual motifs, ready-mades, combine pictures, RGB sculptures, video, and recombine installation I place before you.

[Quelle: https://www.georgkargl.com/de/fine-arts/ausstellung/david-maljkovic-part-1-announcement-attempt-may-4-part-2-online-problem-or-how, 19.10.2020]