as sensed by Eva Petrič, Klaus Krobath and Erwin Uhrmann and presented at Sakaide Civic Art Museum, Sakaide, Japan, May 18 - June 9, 2024
Thanks so much to all the many people who attended the opening of three-artists (mine, Klaus Krobath's and Erwin Uhrmann's) show Sound@Alps at the Sakaide Civic Art Museum in Sakaide, Japan, on Saturday afternoon:
"Eva Petric, Klaus Krobath and Erwin Uhrmann each introduce us to their very personal approach to the Alps and show the many layers in which this ecological and societal space can be understood. These particular interpretations allow us to reflect more profoundly on how much our societies are shaped by the natural environment they are embedded in;" Dr.Elisabeth Bertagnoli the Ambasador of Austria to Japan wrote in the accompanying catalogue, along with the introduction of Jurij Rifelj, the Ambassador of Slovenia to Japan, who highlighted my experience of the Alps from their "sunny side"... from the perspective of someone, who spends most of the time at various parts of the world.
Despite spending so much of my life abroad, I am happy that I was “infected” at already a very early age with the Alps, the sunny side of them, which in my later years, I am now also able to experience from another angle, the Austrian angle, living now also in Vienna... It is from the Alps that I learned perseverance and that respect for others is a must if you want to survive. You must respect just as much the blade of grass that you are about to step on, likewise the spider in the corner working hard to catch its supper, which I tried to manifest in my opening performance Astrocyte Garden with Visitor:
Performance Astrocyte Garden with visitor at the opening of Sound@Alps,Sakaide Civic Art Museum, Japan for which I collaborated with American Japanese musician Hayato Nakao who created the beautiful music and implemented my lyrics and vocal into it. Erwin Uhrmann and KLaus Krobath in their performance.
This project of three artists' positions on Sound@Alps (mine, Klaus Krobath's and Erwin Uhrmann's) is curated by Museum Director Mr. Noriaki Sangawa. Besides each of us being presented each with our own works, we are presenting also a huge collective work Approaching the Vantage Point I, consisting of 30 works that we created collectively.
With the Sounds@Alps curator and Museum Director Noriaki Sangawa in front of our joint work Approaching the Vantage Point I:
Approaching the Vantage point I, below my Cloud@emotion: Story 1:
The joint work "Approaching the Vantage Point I" emerges from a discourse process that has accompanied the three of us over the years of the pandemic. In this process, states Erwin Uhrmann, the three tried to define how to arrive at a common, universal language by targeting a point in the distance that is, as it were, a common goal for everyone. The aim was also to think beyond the crisis of the utopian.
The present work consists of 30 sheets measuring 80 x 100 cm. Petric, Krobath and Uhrmann divided these sheets among themselves and worked on them in three phases, with each of them working on some sheets first, second or third, in every possible combination.
Petric used fabrics from Slovenia, which she either printed or appliquéd, with the themes of origin and distance playing a role. The proximity can be felt in the materiality of the fabrics, the distance above all in the prints.
Krobath has used either realistic motifs such as faces or eyes, or silhouettes of figures that float or appear as if they are performing tricks.
Uhrmann's texts, which he has applied with pencils of varying degrees of hardness, revolve around the themes of memory, imprinting, nature and climate change.
The working technique, in which each has received sheets of the others at different stages, means that the three interact in different ways. The figures, forms and writings form a close interplay, but also have a collage-like character. They include notes, conversations and memories, but also open up spaces and attempt to direct the gaze together beyond the edge of the sheet, towards the "vantage point". This approach also includes the viewer.
The landscapes with which Petric, Krobath and Uhrmann are familiar also play a role here, from the urban out into the alpine world, which is threatened by climate change.
In total, the 30 works result in a large, space-filling work in which there is enough room to vary figures, forms and texts and to allow them to react playfully with each other. Just as if they were teaching each other to speak.
Besides collectively we are each presented also with own artistic position:
"Klaus Krobath confronts us with the dynamic nature of the Alps and their reflection within our characters, “building” us into who we are, providing us with, or taking away our sense of stability as we develop, age and engage with the world around us. His beautiful yet haunting triptychs have a feeling of the other worldly to them, that we can only hope to discover on our journey through life; the real discovery being the discovery of “the stuff”, of the “self” that we are made of, which is best put to the test via our encounter with the Alps. Krobath reflects to us the present, offering us three options: to see it all with a pink lens, to scream and feel the angst, or to succumb to vertigo, our ability to jump into the present and see what may come!
Erwin Urhmann shows us the more poetic and fragile seeming side of the Alps, which is actually “the stuff” of it all, the plants that make up and also change throughout the years, the Alp’s silent witnesses. His works teach us to hear silence as we realize that really, there is no such thing as silence, for he discloses to us the language of the patterns of nature, hiding in most obvious as well as hidden places – the underside of a fern leaf, this disclosing how much rainfall there has been; the rhythm of ant’s movements, this disclosing the weather to come, and so forth... Uhrmann presents us with the link to the past, showing us the DNA of time with its twists and turns, stopping at here and now.
Eva Petric, on the other hand has constructed her own personal nature, as an altar wherein she can plea for forgiveness to nature of our collectively committed sins, wherein she is free to dismantle it all at any one given moment.
As a symbol of Hope, (perhaps it is our last hope), Eva Petric's work invites you on a journey of “merging”, becoming one with the Alps, as she sinks, then again push forth, and through the intricate lace network garden of white Edelweiss flowers (typical mountain flowers endangered and known for their extremely healing properties) bringing them as sacrificial offerings to us,
or is she actually rather bringing herself, and through this, the whole of humanity as an offering to the Alps, our way to plead for forgiveness for the unfathomable traces left by us humans not just within the landscape of the Alps, but upon all of nature.
Eva Petric is expressing the future, a future where we might no longer have the Alps to visit and touch and look at, but only digital references, and paper maquettes, art altars.
Will art and ritualistic like performance save us? After Krobath teaches us to SCREAM our presence of being, and Uhrmann teaches us to HEAR also others besides ourselves screaming in the dark of the night, Petric shows us, that FORGIVNESS IS STILL POSSIBLE and accepted if only we offer it with a genuine heart."
My thanks to the Sakaide Civic Art Museum director and curator Mr. Noriaki Sangawa for inviting me to participate in this project, to honorable artist and professor who has influenced and inspired so many : Prof. Toshihiro Hamano, to Mr. Jaka Miklavčič, Minister Plenipotentiary from the Embassy of Slovenia in Tokyo and to DIrector of the Austria Culture Forum in Tokyo Dr. Arno Mitterdorfer, who both came to the opening all the way from Tokyo, to Anna Sangawa for creating this amazing invitation and translating everything... to the City Mayor of Sakaide Mr. Tetsuji Arifuku for his attention and support, and also all others who were involved and helped in realizing this project.
Tetsuji Arifuku, župan mesta Sakaide, Jaka Miklavčič, Embassy of Slovenia to Japan, Prof. T. Hamano and Arno Metterdrofer, Director of Austria Culture Forum in Tokyo.
My thanks to all the media reporting on Sound@Alps at the Sakaide Civic Art Museum in Sakaide. Japan. A glimpse at Sound@Alps preparing it at the Sakaide Civic Art Museum - the you tube link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqJYFqR9364
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