CMJN 2021
_Spraylab
4-27.06.2021
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy
Following right in after « CONSTELLATIONS » in Heilbronn, Vutuc keeps exploring the varying realities of different mediums with the simultaneous pairing of a new publication and a unique exhibition - which don’t just happen to meet, but directly coincide as one effort from the artist, who found in the context of the global pandemic the drive to reexamine, reinterpret, represent and rearrange past productions, again pondering the quality of representation techniques and questioning the fidelity of perception and definition (as exemplified by one more « book-object »).
In addition to the publication and live performance, the exhibition also featured the « image circle », images projected over three-dimensional space as for the spectator to constantly question their own point of view and stance, all the while optimally structuring the utilization of said space - to the point where it starts claiming itself under the successions of layers that form, revealing more unexpected realities - under light play reminiscent of the darkroom and film manipulation techniques the inception of each image traces back to, as though a logical continuation of the process. Original and copy lose their respective identity in what becomes a stream of textured light, film perforations, singular alterations, formerly foreign objects and general information computed during the slow thawing of specifics.
Vutuc’s never-ending re-questioning - including of his own progress - also resides in « gray wall sivi zid », the exhibition part with works related to the new publication being openly framed reusing glass plates from the walls of his past Heilbronn exhibition; the idea of time looping back on itself and dissolving context directly being a callback to societal promises of a four-walled playground and, in particular, to the general anxiety induced by the contemporary pandemic-related restrictions - where everything takes on a red tint, technicalities become prominent and old and new stop mattering in front of an urgent spectacle.
Aymeric Nocus
TURNING REEL AFTER THE FILM, BOOK
21x29cm, 156, stapled, inside mixed paper
Printed with stencil duplicator - copy machine - laser printer
Self-published in an edition of 7, 2021 Nancy / Paris
.The inception of this project lies in its author's spontaneous reaction to the context of oppression, confusion and urgency the governmental restrictions coinciding with the Covid pandemic generally brought onto its contemporaries; whilst the world stopped and the people disconnected, Vutuc's vision was found in the idea of mentally escaping that claustrophobic frame by keeping creating towards an eventual exhibition, with no particular consideration for scheduling.
The process started through the research and organization of Vutuc’s personal work archive, finding temptation in looking back at a reassuring past, but mostly the drive to recognize its positives and the strength to take them forward - in spite of the dark, lobbyism-riddled political settings. A society the blurry definition of which is only paralleled by Vutuc’s foggy aesthetic, and general symbolism that he highlights or injects via techniques supposed to be ones of representation: analog photography with subsequent film manipulation and scratching, laser printers, or dying copy machines spending their last moments marking the pieces with interestingly singular glitches, lines and tints. Cycles that keep repeating and transcending themselves with each new layer of work, pondering reality.
Here, the author recovered ancient photos from his formative years during the Iron Curtain times but also of Chernobyl, Ukraine or Moscow that, to this day, reinterpret and recontextualize themselves, revealing new dimensions of character and emphasizing on the multiplicity of « Čista Zona » / clean zones throughout space and time. The resulting rhythm is sensorially matched by the one of the visual noise, with a particular proneness to infection by red color: « simultaneously a call for revolutionary change, blood and - paradoxically - a symbol for stop », Vutuc says.
Skateboarding was also documented, treating Chernobyl as a playground amidst a global field of consumption, corruption and manipulation - all the while appearing as its own layer of the present consumerism. More generally, as they frenetically keep revealing themselves and invading the space, the images can induce a trance reminiscent of one induced by raga or drone compositions, only shut closed by the Iron Curtain again, repeatedly printed onto light-sensitive recycled paper now to serve as the back cover - or last page - representative of the contents of the box.
This is another of Vutuc’s books that questions as far as its own definition and reality, in form blending together with nothing but its singularity, reinforcing the original potential of the object as an emotional gateway - before reinterpreting it all over again.