Curator
ABOUT THE CARNIVAL CYCLE “...even with these characters from children’s comics and cartoons that appear in Pregl’s Carnival series, not everything is as it seems at first glance. In fact, a very hidden travesty of meanings and roles, original and perverted symbolisms and positions, is revealed, which in extreme cases can be instrumentalised to (or beyond) the limits of the bizarre. However, such excesses in the shifting of meanings cannot simply be dismissed as random curiosities from the world of cultural production and the entertainment industry. This is precisely the same effect that drives the production of meanings and behaviour in the closed circle of internet information platforms, closed tribalistic communities on social networks, which, emboldened by the principle of anonymity, the herd collective instinct to fight and the legitimisation of hate speech, establish and maintain their own parallel reality.
Dr Martina Vovk
ON THE CYCLE GUGU GAGA: “Who is the author of the masterpiece in the comment?" was the question of the survey among hateful posts on Twitter next to a photograph of the installation of the painting series Carnival by Arjan Pregl, which the curators of the Modern Gallery in Ljubljana included in a group exhibition of contemporary Slovenian painting A Time Without Innocence. The possible answers were: a three-year-old, a nine-year-old, an academic painter and Slovenian Picasso. To the conservative starting point for reopening the renowned dilemma about what is or is not art, who deserves to be an artist, and what is a “real” work of art, Pregl responded with a relaxed comment. And with a new series of paintings... With careful consideration, Pregl started the series based on his childhood paintings, which served as the basic building blocks of the painting. In the artistic sense, Pregl steadfastly continues with strong colour saturated canvases, changing the rhythm of pastiness of coatings, also revealing and covering coloured areas or elements in the painting.”
Maja Antončič
ON THE CYCLE CHILDLIKE PAINTINGS: “If the series of works GUGU GAGA was presented in the Art Salon in Celje (2019), created as a reaction to the ofttimes insulting comments of viewers on his works from the Carnival series, presented earlier that year at the group exhibition Time Without Innocence at the Modern Gallery in Ljubljana, the artist decided to deal with the new series Childlike Paintings with the artistry of the works, with compositions and colours. As a basis for reflection on the dominance of form over content, he collects, analyses and reassembles his childhood paintings, which encourage him to reflect on appropriation, formalism, colour syntaxes, design reminiscence and fashion trends typical of the norms of his childhood. In the use of typical brown-yellow interior colours of the 1970s, wallpaper patterns and edging the paintings with a frame outline reminiscent of a Polaroid photograph, the charming records of the artist’s childhood, full of simplicity and carelessness, are most imaginatively reflected. With the mapping and consistent use of chevrons on each of the nine canvases, he once again uncompromisingly slams the door on unimaginative and constantly complaining viewers.”
Alenka Gregorič
