ALEM KORKUT

1.40

 

We kindly invite you to the opening of Alem Korkut’s exhibition titled 1.40

 

Opening of the exhibition: Wednesday, March 8, 2023, at 8:00 p.m

 

Institute for Contemporary Art

Trg kralja Tomislava 20, Zagreb

 

Opening hours of the gallery Tuesday – Saturday 1:00 – 7:00 p.m.

 

The exhibition remains open until Saturday, April 4, 2023.

 

 

 

The idea for this exhibition has been with me for several years, during which I repeatedly started experiments with different materials, which mostly ended ingloriously. I concluded that the result I imagined required more than my intention, given that I am not the only participant in the execution of the works.

Alem Korkut.

 

The solo exhibition of works by Alem Korkut, titled 1.40, is the first solo exhibition of this author at the Institute for Contemporary Art. At this exhibition, Korkut presents a new series of works (2022) that were created processually, in which, in addition to the author’s work, the permanence of time played a role in which the objects were exposed to somewhat uncontrolled conditions, in which the author left the works to natural processes to acquire their final form and appearance. The exhibition was realized following the author’s interests, which are the denominator of most of his works: leaving the definition of the final appearance of the work is often left to chance, while my task is to define the conditions in which the process that is in the background of the performance takes place. Namely, my idea was to try to get a drawing, a picture or an ordinary stain without significant intervention, which would be the result of the action of lichens, fungi or bacteria. Something (visually) similar to the “ A Dilapidated Wall Fantasy, 1938 ” by Marijan Detoni, with the significant difference that I let natural processes define the final appearance of the work.

 

The exhibited works are made in several different materials: paper, plaster, metal and glass, regardless of whether they are simple two- or three-dimensional surfaces and objects reduced to the common title “1.40”, which refers to the level that separates “healthy” from of the “contaminated” part of the exhibited works.

The level of 1.40 m could have been set at another height, but what I wanted to achieve was the impression of the situation that can be seen after the flood, after the water recedes. Walls soaked in water, furniture swollen from moisture, mud clearly delineating the height the water reached.

 

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Born in 1970 in Travnik. He finished primary and secondary school in Banja Luka. He studied sculpture in Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo 1991. From 1992 to 1997 he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb where he graduated in 1997.
He is the author of several public sculptures, including the sculpture “Caryatid” in Pazin (2002), a Bicycle monument in Koprivnica (2005), memorials to the war veterans of the Homeland War in Šibenik (2006), Karlovac (2009) and Koprivnica (2016).
Among others, he is the winner of Grand Prize of the 27th Youth Salon in Zagreb, the annual HDLU Award for Best Young Artists 2004, the Grand Prize of the Split Salon in 2009, the third prize at the T-HT Awards 2011 @ msu.hr prize, and one of three equal awards of the 13th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture in 2018.
He is the winner of several awards at public tender for the art in public spaces. He has exhibited at about forty solo, and about one hundred and fifty group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad.
From 1998 to 2007 member of HZSU, association of independent artists. Since 2004 Member and then President of Art Organization
Žitnjak Ateliers. Since 2007 he has been teaching sculpture at ALU in Zagreb, currently in the position of Full Professor. https://alemkorkut.com/