Dominik Štibernik, Birth Or Death Of The Artist, 2024
3 – 24 June 2025
P74 Gallery
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You are cordially invited to attend the opening of the exhibition Making it. Making what? by Dominik Štibernik on Tuesday, 3 June 2025, between 7pm and 9pm at the P74 Gallery in Ljubljana.
The exhibition will be on view till 24 June 2025 at the usual opening hours of the Gallery (monday to friday, 12.00 to 18.00, extra viewings upon individual arrangement).
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»And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and … this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever.« [1]
During his two-month residency in New York, Dominik Štibernik attempted to recreate a video of a plastic bag floating in the wind, one of the most recognisable scenes from the movie American Beauty. The bag and the wind did not behave as he would have liked. In the video, featured in this exhibition, the artist adds to the aestheticised, poetic moments the frames that show realness of the situation – these moments show him trying to catch the bag, retreiving it, carrying it back, then throwing it into the air again hoping that the vortex will grab it in the desired way. The beauty of the images of a bag in motion is particularly highlighted in a reduced version featured in his new Artist Book created for the exhibition. While the banality of the gesture and the ephemerality of the documented moment echo the artist’s earlier artistic practice, Štibernik’s newfound approval of making »mistakes« seems to mark a significant shift from his usual desire for control and his usual perfectionism.
This solo exhibition is part of the OHO Group Award which Štibernik received last year for the project Work is to be found (2024), an overturned sculptural pedestal that at first glance seems like a seating in the middle of the space, but as we walk around it, the object’s (other) purpose is revealed. With only a slight artist’s gesture, the object is transformed into a work of art. The question of the work of art and its context is a theme that is at the heart of Štibernik’s practice, with spontaneity of an exhibition, studio, and post-production at its core. What is usually in the background, behind the artistic practice, Štibernik elevates to a work of art or gesture. These pieces can hint at ephemerality, fragility, and invisibility. They are marked with various kinds of traces – in this exhibition, we can see traces of frames (Traces, 2022), which, in a strict, steady rhythm, are arranged on the walls, thereby creating the impression that the work is missing or has been removed. The gradual disappearance is also present in the works such as Bussines Cards (2024) and Work is Work (2024): the former shows a gradual fading of the stamp on the artist’s business card, while the latter features a photographic documentation of gradual degradation of a cardboard square that has been exposed to rain.
Most of the exhibited pieces date to 2024 and 2025 (except for Traces), but it is interesting to consider them in relation to Štibernik’s pre-New York opus. The photograph on the »tote bag« can be seen as a bridge – there is the documentation of the artist’s invisible performance after receiving the award, where he lies in an overturned cube, and an enlarged photograph from the residency. The author lies on this one as well, but in the living room. As the cube is associated with a cocoon, the first piece can be seen as the death-birth of the author. The second piece, however, features a photograph (wallpaper) becoming a background and a basis for a series of white images that give the impression of thought bubbles in a comic book; here, we see »the artist at work«, the artist producing a concept. The time for work/creativity given to artists by the residency is also reflected in a series of photographs where Štibernik documented physical exercise, something that is usually not understood as work. »If an art residency is a space for artistic activity, I can also include workouts among the artistic activities,« says Štibernik. The exhibition’s title (as the works themself) evokes dual connotations – how to succeed and what leads to success, what success is, and the key question that Štibernik addresses in his artistic practice: what exactly is (a) work (of art). Štibernik’s work frames the concepts of ephemerality, traces, and voids, and connects the experience of the residency with the everyday aspects of life, all of which testify to his artist’s liberation and a new, different, even more comprehensive unification of art and life.
Nina Skumavc
[1] Quote from the movie American Beauty (dir. Sam Mendes, 1999).
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Dominik Štibernik (1993) is a visual artist who graduated in spatial conceptualisation from the Ljubljana Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) in 2019. Half a year later, he became an assistant to Miran Mohar, a member of the IRWIN group, focusing on researching materials, producing, and restoring Mohar’s artworks. Since then, Štibernik and Mohar have been collaborating closely. Štibernik’s works have been featured in several group and solo exhibitions locally and internationally. He is the recipient of the 2024 OHO Group Award.