After the battle all generals are fucked
Dream worlds on canvas by Bojan Šumonja & Marko Jakše
Opening – Friday May 14th, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m
Johannisstrasse 3A, 66111 Saarbrücken // duration of the exhibition 14/5. – 19/6, 2024
Curator & Gallery talk: Esad Puzić
Introductions: Johannes Birringer
Marko Jakše & Bojan Šumonja, Pasta al dente di leone, 2017 / La notte id maggio nella baia zonchi, 2018
Gallery Puzić cordially invites you to the presentation of two of the most important and renowned artists in Central Europe – Bojan Šumonja (Croatia) and Marko Jakše (Slovenia).
Bojan Šumonja is rightly considered one of the most famous and recognized Croatian visual artists of the last decades. He has exhibited independently over 100 times across Europe and in the USA. His works have, among others, been presented at independent exhibitions in Venice, Milan, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Klagenfurt, Graz, Brussels, Ljubljana, Luxembourg, New Orleans, Zagreb, Dubrovnik and throughout Croatia. und ganz Kroatien In his richly baroque compositions, sheep, gaunt flamingos, birds, downtrodden refugees and superheroes often appear, in sometimes absurd and dangerous scenarios of ecological, social and political catastrophes or dystopian landscapes. At the same time, complex ironic references (for which the artist was celebrated as the first “postmodernist” on the Croatian scene) wander through these dark battlefields - quotes from silent films (Buster Keaton), classical art and Pop Art appear, little Easter bunnies and other cartoons figures run around after the battle. Or herds of people bow down like African ostriches, hiding their heads in the sand. Šumonja’s most recent paintings, as well as the “collective” worksOne Dollar Billwith Marko Jakše (One Dollar Bill), radiate striking chromatic peculiarities and combine versatile motifs and spatial systems.
The Slovenian artist Marko Jakše is appreciated by art experts for his expressive works with contrasting elements and imaginative, poetic scenarios. For more than 30 years, his artistic visions have been inspiring audiences with complex and multifaceted works that have a unique appeal and have already been awarded many prizes. Among many other exhibition venues, Marko Jakše represented Slovenia at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). A strong source of inspiration is the animal and plant world. The painterly results are surreal-seeming worlds that highlight the beauty of nature but also intertwine completely fantastic, strange and surreal elements.
The sarcastic title of our exhibition is aimed at the innovative image and style combinations of the two painters, whose fictional, mutated or real characters/natures capture our imagination, looking at us with strange grimaces, and also turn into melancholy dreams.
Šumonjakše
What is also quite unusual for our Western artworld scene is the fact that the two artists worked as a collective for this exhibition, i.e. the paintings were designed and developed by both of them together (just as in the One Dollar Bill project). One Dollar Bill, entworfen und entwickelt.
In the public conversation with the artists during the opening, Šumonja mentioned that their collaboration is similar to the way jazz musicians work, they improvise together on their instruments, develop of the leitmotif and the narrative of a painting, and then further advance the composition or vary the motifs.
For the presentation of the artworks, Bojan Šumonja and Marko Jakše were also accompanied by Peter Tomaž Dobrila, director of the Media Center KIBLA in Maribor (Slovenia), who traveled to Saarbrücken with them. Both artists have collaborated with KIBLA and exhibited there. Gallery Puzić is pleased to welcome the renowned found/director of the Slovene art center.
We warmly invite all art lovers and collectors and look forward to your visit.
Photo credit: J. Birringer & M.Puzić