Art Research Center 42° Cetinje / Montenegro
*1942, lives and works in Vienna and Krumpendorf
Matching
Arriving in Cetinje, many a feature seemed amazing and fascinating to me – the charm of the city, its people and history – and all set amidst a stunning mountain scenery.
As an artist, my endeavour focuses on making the internal structures of phenomena visible, as well as their boundaries, be they tangible or intangible. I strive to discover how and where they become manifest, and find a way to visualise it. In exploring the issue of how and where, recognition is given to the fact that the world can be seen from various angles and with different perceptions. (For example, I developed various types of maps, bringing together and combining geological, sociological, political and historical elements).
Every project thus requires a fresh approach and formal and contextual solutions of its own.
The karstic landscape around Cetinje presented a new topic. Structures are hard to find in this disorientating sea of rocks, interwoven with a web of green spots of vegetation.
So I directed my interest to an archaic looking place in a state of disintegration.
My attention was drawn to OBOD, the abandoned huge refrigerator factory. Confronted with this huge lost world, I was simultaneously dumbfounded and inspired. And that moment brought me right back to the beginning of my work on the landscape and closed the circle. The structure of both turned out to embody the same element, to represent the same cycle of arising and breaking down, emergence and decay, creation and dissolution. My notes, drawings, paintings and photos show the sedulous process of creation by nature as well as the inconsistency, transitory and ephemeral nature of objects.
Inge Vavra, September 2016