Similaridade Na Dualidade

Video documentation, short teaser:
https://player.vimeo.com/video/162600752

Exhibition invitation:

Exhibition “Similaridade Na Dualidade” was opened on 10th of March in Gallery TIR Mostovna, Slovenia by artists Jaka Čurlič and Valerie Wolf Gang. On exhibition you could see photos, videos and installations created while they explored Portugal and stayed there on a one year residency. Two styles were merged together into exhibition which showed different sides of Portugal and their people, with reflection on global political and social situation.

Curatorial text:

ENGLISH:

Sometimes you need to travel on the other side of the World (or Europe) so your path crosses with another person. And sometimes the stars of the universe collide and despite the differences you find out that you share a common passion and the overlook on the world with someone. In the search of Portuguese essence multimedia artist Jaka Čurlič (JZA Crew) and visual artist Valerie Wolf Gang met in Portugal. While they were researching and working in their one year residency abroad, and working on new art pieces in the city of Caldas da Rainha, they sucessfuly integrated into the local art and music sceene. The result is an intimate and honest insight into the urban life of this deamy land beside the Atlantic ocean, which influenced their artistic expression. Artists Jaka and Valerie are presenting the public their video and photography works which were created durring their stay in Portugal and intertwined their paths on personal and professional fields. Interleaving can be seen in the strong duality, which lies under the surface of the total essence of passion for artistic expression and social criticism.

SLOVENIAN:

Včasih moraš odpotovati na drugo stran sveta (oz. Evrope), da se tvoje in poti neke druge osebe prekrižajo. In včasih se vse zvezde univerzuma poklopijo in kljub vsem zunanjim razlikam ugotoviš, da z nekom deliš skupno strast in pogled na svet. V iskanju portugalske esence sta se tako spoznala multimedijski ustvarjalec in dokumentarist Jaka Čurlič ter videastka in vizualna umetnica Valerie Wolf Gang. Med raziskovanjem, enoletnim bivanjem v tujini in ustvarjanjem v mestecu Caldas da Rainha sta se uspešno infiltrirala v tamkajšnjo umetniško ter glasbeno sceno. Rezultat je intimen in pristen vpogled v urbano življenje te zasanjane dežele ob Atlantiku, kar je vplivalo tudi na njuno umetniško izražanje. Ustvarjalca Jaka in Valerie se javnosti predstavljata z video in fotografskimi umetniškimi deli, ki so nastala na Portugalskem in so prepletla njune poti tako na osebnem kot profesionalnem področju. Prepletanje je moč videti v močni dualnosti, ki pod površjem skriva skupno esenco strasti do umetniškega izražanja in družbeno kritičnost.

ITALIAN:

A volte occorre andarsene dall’altra parte del mondo, o vero dell’Europa, perché la tua e la strada di un’altra persona s’incrocino. Durante la ricerca dell’essenza del Portogallo è nata così l’amicizia tra l’artista multimediale e documentarista Jaka Čurlič e l’artista multimediale Valerie Wolf Gang, entrambi studenti della Scuola d’arte di Nova Gorica. Nel corso della loro permanenza nella cittadina di Caldas da Rainha i due artisti hanno esplorato quello che essa ha da offrire e si sono brillantemente infiltrati nella sua scena artistica e musicale. Il risultato è una visione intima e genuina della vita urbana di questo incantato paese atlantico, il che si riflette anche nella loro espressione artistica. Le loro strade personali e professionali si sono intrecciate varie volte, il che ha ispirato la creazione dei vari lavori che sono oggi presentati al pubblico. Questo intreccio si può vedere nella forte dualità che sotto la superficie nasconde una comune passione per l’espressione artistica e la critica sociale.

“VALERIE WOLF GANG – PORTUGUESE TIMELINE”

Photo series, 300 x 50 cm | Portugal 2014/2015

Photo series ‘Valerie Wolf Gang – Portuguese timeline’ gives an intimate view into the personal life of an artist, in the time of her stay in Portugal. Each day of her stay she immortalized with a photo, with a view which impressed her that day and which she wanted to remember forever. The timeline of her residence shows her experience with a new environment and the passing which remains recorded only as a photo or nostalgic memory: “One day, one moment, one memory that lasts forever.”

„AN ARTIST ABROAD“

Series of video poetry, 20min 20sec & Poetry book An Artist Abroad | Portugal 2015

Series of video poetry ‘An Artist Abroad’ consists of six short experimental poetical videos, which were made simultaneously with the artist’s research about the influence of a change of surroundings on artistic creativity. Through very personal poems we can observe new surroundings where artist suddenly moved and created digital collection of poems, which is possible to explore and watch with the help of QR codes, to scan them with mobile phones and tablets, and which we can take away with us, so the poems can symbolically travel and explore new spaces in which they will be played.

„NEW LAND NEW BEGINNING“

Experimental video, 9 min | Portugal 2015

Experimental video ‘New land new beginning’ was created in the first phase of the artist Valerie Wolf Gang moving to Portugal and it shows her adaptation of new lands, and at the same time it symbolizes rebirth because new environment influenced her artistic evolution. Steps in the video are moving towards the future and with every repetition of the video we are returned back to the starting point which shows the circle of life and states: “Every night when I go to sleep I die. And the next morning I am reborn.”