VERY PRIVATE, 1999
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška (KGLU), Slovenj Gradec
Participating artists: absalon, Eija Liisa Ahtila, Elke Krystufek, Nataša Prosenc, Martha Rosler, Pipilotti Rist, Mirjana Rukavina, Gillian Wearing. Opening performance: Richard Crow.
Rukavina’s installation consists of a triptych video projection and a monitor in a stylised hospital waiting room. The Waiting Room confronts us with happenings in the surgery room, with a reconstruction of an operation, while the environment suggests that we are looking at the »direct transmission«. Rukavina presents the innermost intimacy of a person: opening and incising of a human body, which is impossible even for the »protagonist« himself / herself. The presentation does not feature the style of scientific television programmes in which man is merely a sign of the progress in medicine; rather, with the mode of installation and editing Rukavina has asserted her personal apprehension of such operations. Man in her installation is a poetic being, not »animated« by God, but rather by man. The »direct transmission« of the operation is not reduced (merely) to the highlights of the operation, nor systematically selected in the direction of a definite goal, but rather presented in an aesthetic manner to induce ontological reflections about human existence that depends – in this case more than ever – on the earthly factor, on other people.
Vanesa Cvahte, curator
Mirjana Rukavina, Waiting Room / Very Private, The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška (KGLU), Slovenj Gradec, 1999
Four-channel video installation, color, dimensions variable
Mirjana Rukavina, Waiting Room / Very Private, The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška (KGLU), Slovenj Gradec, 1999
Four-channel video installation, color, dimensions variable