Chris Evans: I Don't Know if I've Explained Myself

Chris Evans: I Don't Know if I've Explained Myself

1. 6.- 4. 7. 2010
Mala galerija, Slovenska cesta 35

Guest curator Tirdad Zolghadr

Chris Evans engages with a variety of forms and materials including short films, bronze sculpture, editioned etchings, airbrush paintings, ceramics, live events and unwieldy social situations. What you see before you is not a group show, but the upshot of three consecutive events June 1-3, which were part of Evans' artwork "I Don't Know if I've Explained Myself" (2006 - ongoing). The different works on display, by Evans, IRWIN, and Mark Požlep & Jaša, were discussed on three different occasions in the soundproof room to the right of the gallery. The discussion was relayed via live feed to the audience, which was seated among the works. Evans' "I Don't Know if I've Explained Myself" takes its lead from a 1970 conference organized by Seth Siegelaub at Nova Scotia College. 25 artists participated in a discussion on the sixth floor, while students watched on monitors in the canteen.

Chris Evans, Cop Talk (2005 - ongoing)
On over a dozen occasions in Europe and the US, Evans invited representatives from national police forces to give recruitment presentations at art academies, including Ljubljana Academy, May 28, 2010.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010: "Cop Talk" was discussed by artist Apolonija Šušteršič, critic Katja Praznik, philosophers Renata Salecl, Marko Jenko and curator and director of the Moderna galerija Zdenka Badovinac.

I Don't Know if I've Explained Myself (2006 - ongoing)

IRWIN, Was ist Kunst
"Malevich Between the Two Wars", 1984, mixed media, collection of the artists

IRWIN: Icons
Painting of the Icon/ Malevich Between the Two Wars, oil on wood, 1993 - 2008

IRWIN: Processions
Procession in Graz in 2008 in front of the church St. Andrä / clergyman Hermann Glettler is carrying the icon Malevich Between the Two Wars /
Colour photograph (photo: Tomaž Gregorič), 2008

Wednesday, June 2, 2010: "Malevich Between the Two Wars" was discussed by artists affiliated with the Ganes Pratt Gallery Ljubljana: Meta Grgurevič, Urša Vidic , Jaša, Marko Požlep and the gallerist Primož Nemec.

Mark Požlep & Jaša, "Time to be Poets", 2009, video, X min.

Thursday, June 3, 2010: "Time to be Poets" was discussed by Chris Evans, Tirdad Zolghadr and IRWIN members Borut Vogelnik & Miran Mohar

Chris Evans is an artist based in Brussels and London. Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at: Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp ('Take A Bureaucratic Bow', (2009)); Galerie Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam ('Point at it, like a farmer at a pig', (2008)); and Luettgenmeijer, Berlin ('What's the point of a revolution without copulation, copulation, copulation', (2008)). His work has also been shown as part of 'Documentalist', Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2010), 'Talk Show', ICA, London (2009), 'Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie', Arnolfini, Bristol (2009); 'A Fantasy for Alan Kaprow', CIC, Cairo (2009); and 'The Impossible Prison', Nottingham Contemporary (2008). In June 2010 he will present a solo exhibition at Marres, Maastricht, titled 'The cell that doesn't believe in the mind it's part of'.

Tirdad Zolghadr is an independent writer and curator based in Berlin. He writes for frieze magazine and teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College NY. Zolghadr is curator of the Taipei Biennial 2010 with Hongjohn Lin. Other curatorial work includes the UAE pavilion at the Venice Biennale 09 and the long-term traveling project Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie, with Nav Haq. Zolghadr is curatorial advisor to the Artist Pension Trust and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine. His first novel Softcore was published by Telegram Books 2007 (translated into German, Italian, French). The working title of the second novel is Top Ten.