Staš Kleindienst: Antiarcadia

Staš Kleindienst’s exhibition entitled Anticardia showcases paintings from his latest creative period, some of which have never been exhibited before. The artist has expanded his body of work for this exhibition with an intervention, a mural that connects his oeuvre and adds another dimension to the exhibition. The exhibition could hardly have come at a better time, for we are (hopefully) coming to the end of the pandemic that has brought the world to a standstill for two years, changed our habits and relations and turned our ideas of ‘normality’ upside down. We can identify with the depictions of urban ruins, time capsules of the unexperienced past and the frozen moments of human confusion, apathy and submissiveness. The dystopian landscapes and events in Kleindienst’s artworks suddenly seem exceptionally close, almost as if they were taken from our everyday lives. The audience is thus confronted by prisms that direct the reading of the exhibition and individual works of art, which are, each in their own way, a universe in themselves.

Staš Kleindienst graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 2007, where he also defended his MA in 2009. His works can be found in a number of private and public collections. In 2014 he received the OHO Group Award and he also, amongst others, curated the student exhibition titled 12 reasons for Painting in the ŠKUC Gallery in 2018. In 2019 The University of Ljubljana awarded him the Recognition of Important Works of Art. He lives and works in Vipava.

Curator: Asta Vrečko

Photo: Jaka Babnik