Bojan Fajfric
Lives and works in Amsterdam
EDUCATION/RESIDENTIES
1995-1996 Hogeschool voor de kunsten,Utrecht
1996-1999 Koninklijke Academie voor beeldende kunsten,Den Haag
2000-2001 Rijksacademie van beeldende kunsten,Amsterdam
2004 ARCUS Artist in Residence-Ibaraki,JapanBojan Fajfric: 'conference table'
Voices, amplified by microphones, cause the conference table to move. The pigment on the tabletop, which initially is neatly divided into three colors, also starts to vibrate and to shift. Behind the table, there is a representation of a monstrous tongue. When you look at the work, an infernal machine seems to be in action, which affects all senses. It is sculptural (the table), kinetic (the vibrations), sensual (the colorful pigments and the tongue) auditive and manipulative because the voice-over can be performed by the viewers. Do the table and the microphones induce the visitors to raise their voice – which causes vibrations so that everything starts moving – or is it the picture of the tongue which entices into producing sound and causing earthquakes? Or is it language itself, which materializes and dominates everything? With Yugoslavian tragedy in mind, the work seems to become obvious. But is this really true? Do the contrasting pigments on the table induce violence? The louder the voice, the more vigorous the movement, it can only be stopped by another voice which shouts down the first one. Is it then perhaps the threatening noise of propaganda and demagogy, driven by blind ambition and personal power madness, which sets the masses into motion? What is decided at the conference table? Are war plans being concocted or is it a peace conference? Or are they all just appearances? Who is manipulating who? Once the voices start to talk, a blind dynamism seems to burst out which cannot be stopped. The sound can become even more threatening and evolve into a climax. No initial reasons can be clearly indicated and the result is even less obvious. The tragedy of history is externalized in an obsessive way in this conference, with the ingredients nationalism, territorial lust for power and absurd coincidence. The work emphatically refers to a dramatic political context from a recent past. But the reference as such is very fortuitous. Imagination and reality overlap. Bojan Fajfric: Dark Universe
by Huib Haye van der Werf
Bojan Fajfric’s work is often associated to his personal history and Serbian background. In previous expositions his works have had a strong relevance to national and cultural issues which he subtly knew to translate into a transcultural and universal idiom of audio/visual form. However, to say that his work is just a personal interpretation of politics or merely an illustration of his background would be too simple. His works are autonomous entities in which the audience is invited to witness a larger vision, but is ultimately left before an object which stands on its own. In his newest exposition - Dark Universe – Fajfric has taken a more total approach and presents the viewer a complete installation, where each work is intricately connected with the others, leaving the audience to contemplate their situation - and that of the artist - within this cosmos rather than an individual object.
Dark Universe is the presentation of a twilight world where, due to the dearth of light, the viewer must rely on the circumstances of the artist by which to navigate this creation. The nine spheres - or planets - are symbolic of this positional play: the viewer continually finds himself aware of his location in accordance to the other works, much like the smaller spheres inhabit their own space and sound, but always in relationship to the larger central one. This becomes a parallel to the awareness of Fajfric’s own position in reality and how he allows the viewer - as a central sphere - to consider his presence in this extraordinary twilight-reality through a lens of black. The building presented in the slide show seems mysterious and real at the same time, as if it contains the dark universe itself, causing the viewer again to consider his actual location. The abstract conditions of the exposition also apply to the drawings as they translate sound into a static image or written language leading one to wonder if they are not being presented an indecipherable key to this universe, which may ultimately reveal its creator. Fajfric gives every reason to consider his presence, yet no concrete sign of its existence, which is exactly what makes being there so fascinating.
Dark Universe is an invitation to a twilight world in which Fajfric himself is creator, overseer and protagonist.
He presents us a prespective into his reality – which could very well be ours as well - through a lens of fantastic decline; one that has reached either its most degenerate condition or is about to blossom again.