Man:Machine

The artworks by the five artists are concerned with the exploration of the dynamic relationship between man and machine, and within this, the questions about the role and significance of work and the worker in contemporary society. In various ways, they particularly touch upon the field of industry, where this relationship has been most defined in the past.

The given subject has already marked many periods of art in the past – particularly the time of the historical avant-gardes. Today, it is again in the forefront of the interest of many artists. The world has progressively advanced in its technological development, becoming more and more roboticised and digitized with new, advanced forms of machines. At the same time, it is also marked by the repercussions of the recent global economic crisis. Many old and new questions spring up, as well as dilemmas that the authors of the exhibition divulge through their artworks. They consider the traps and the benefits of progress. The crisis of the values of society, which is in the name of development increasingly yearning for quick profits and capital, exploiting and destroying the worker. They question the consequences of the fact that the machine is no longer just man’s aid in performing work, but is becoming more and more of a substitute, an invention that removes its creator from the working process, which jeopardizes man’s income and hence his survival. They also talk about the successful stories of “cooperation” between man and machine, and the importance of preserving the memory of past achievements within technological development, which we now call industrial heritage.

The exhibition joins the interdisciplinary project by the museums of Gorenjska entitled Our Factories, Our Pride – The Industrial Heritage of Gorenjska, which is dedicated to the history of the local industrial heritage in the Gorenjska region.

Artists: Metod Frlic, Tomaž Furlan, Sanela Jahić, Aleksij Kobal, Antonio Živkovič

Curator: Barbara Sterle Vurnik

Photo: Tomaž Grdin, GBJ archive