“A year ago, during an amazing concert by Benjamin Clementine at Kino Šiška, I needed a break; what was happening onstage blew my mind, so I had to step outside. Waiting for my drink, I looked to my right and focused on the big white wall. Then I saw the piece. A site-specific intervention that shifts the element of stage lights onto the wall and puts a written statement in the center. A frozen moment of elusiveness and the defiant persistence of a thought. A verse from an old song of mine that keeps on lingering in my mind, to the point that it assumes its autonomy. So I searched my pockets for a piece of paper, an action of recurring beginnings. A fragment of all the songs of tomorrow.” JAŠA, October 2018
JAŠA (Mrevlje-Pollak, 1978) is one of the most prolific and influential contemporary Slovenian visual artists and the most recognisable voice of a generation whose education, artistic practice and project exhibitions broke through on the local and foreign art scene, thus ensuring visibility in the international art space. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, graduating with honours in 2004, and obtained a second-level degree at the same academy in 2007 (con elode). As of 2008, he has led experimental education programmes at the same institution. During his studies, he was a member of the international group Crash in Progress, a progressive and radical group that established its reputation with art projects that gained significant attention.
In 2005, he started down his own path, on which he continued his diverse multimedia practice, founding it on the principles of site-specific approaches and intertwining creative processes with others. During a fast-paced decade of comprehensive projects, he, alone or with a number of other important authors, thoroughly altered the Ljubljana art scene, then continued across European project spaces and exhibition sites until his first solo exhibition in New York in 2012. In 2015, he represented Slovenia at the 56th Venice Biennial, one of the most important contemporary art events in the world. From the very beginning, being a trained painter, he combined the solitude of studio work with collaborations with other authors and collectives from various fields (from contemporary multimedia visual practices, architectural approaches and fundamentals to sonic art, music and performance) into layered, comprehensive projects that placed the relationship towards and with the audience at the core of the art piece. Since 2013, after intense and fruitful years of activity on the Slovenian and European art scene, he lives and works in Ljubljana, New York and elsewhere, remaining a constant on the international art scene.
Organisation: Kino Šiška.
