PHLOGISTON International multimedia exhibition
Galerija umjetnina / Museum of Fine Arts
Ulica kralja Tomislava 15
Split, Croatia
Thursday, 2 July, 2015 9 P.M.
Artists: Naomi Campbell, Davide Cantoni, Atalai Gábor, Ivo Gattin, Momčilo Golub, Kio Griffith, Daniel Horowitz, Yi-Ping Hou, Željko Jerman, Kismányoky Károly, Željko Kipke, Yves Klein, Milan Knižák, Siniša Labrović, Katalin Ladik, Bennett Lieberman, Marcos Lutyens, Dalibor Martinis, Ana Mendieta, Ivan Mesek, Marijan Molnar, Antun Motika, Marko Pogačnik, Anne Morgan Spalter, Jan Steklík, Mladen Stilinović, Damir Stojnić, Bill Viola
Curated by: Kóan Jeff Baysa & Branko Franceschi
It seems fitting to open Phlogiston as a summer exhibition at Croatia’s Split Museum of Fine Arts during the season’s solar temperament. Phlogiston was a hypothetical substance formerly thought to be a vital and volatile constituent of all combustible substances. The phenomena of flame and burning were the escape of phlogiston from the base material left behind as ash or charcoal. The hubris of Prometheus with his gift of fire to man was punished by perpetual pain. Appropriated and deployed in religion, ritual, and science across cultures, fire is primal, cleansing, destructive, regenerative, sustaining, illuminating, warming, redemptive, and celebratory. Even after the revelation that oxygen was the essential component of combustion, the associated mysticism, fascination, and power of fire were perpetuated. Fear of fire is one of our most basic instincts, invoked in visions of hell; a cataclysmic nuclear fire is seen as the end of the world. Phlogiston brings together international and regional artists working with this incendiary elemental phenomenon as medium, in mark making, process, and image, addressing enduring issues of the environment, identity, expiation, and finitude.
The artworks presented at the exhibition are kindly loaned by the artists, Centre Pompidou, The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, Marinko Sudac Collection, Galerie Lelong New York and Bill Viola Studios.
On view till 30 August 2015
Tuesdays – Sundays 10 A.M. – 9 P.M.
Closed Mondays and state holidays
For more info, please visit Galerija umjetnina / Museum of Fine Arts
