Kamosutra 01-18 | All in One, acrylic on canvas, poliptych 244x244cm, Brooklyn residence, NYC 2018
The reductive painting language of Duša Jesih, whose provenance can easily be reconstructed in the heritage of constructivism and neo-constructivism, in the otherwise very expressive and figurative Slovenian painting milieu arouses a certain discomfort and ambiguity at first glance. This is a moment on which Jesihova skilfully builds. How to understand her refined modernist idiom in the context of contemporary art? In response, Jesihova leaves quite a few anchor points for decoding her painterly gesture.
The duality of the attitude towards the modernist expression is at the forefront of her consideration: the artist is quite explicit about referring to the constructivist heritage, which she consciously heightens with an open mixing (or at least a clear indication of only this) gestures of painting, architecture, and design. At the same time, her practice is a child of her time, the fall of modern meta-stories, and disillusionment with the neoliberal appropriation of the avant-garde spirit of innovation, which are moments that largely define the positioning of her field of reference. This is evident from the first encounter with her works, which in their free, unencumbered visual combinatorics testify to the humor and irony of the distance to their own visual origins.
In fact, it seems that the visual elements of Duša's paintings become not the builders of a new modern political-social project, but eloquent linguistic elements that, precisely through their distance from their original visual context and uneasy non-contemporaneity, skilfully address the contemporary problems of ideology as a lack of politics, consumerism as a lack of emancipation and over-saturation of the visual field as a lack of communication.
The duality of the attitude towards the modernist expression is at the forefront of her consideration: the artist is quite explicit about referring to the constructivist heritage, which she consciously heightens with an open mixing (or at least a clear indication of only this) gestures of painting, architecture, and design. At the same time, her practice is a child of her time, the fall of modern meta-stories, and disillusionment with the neoliberal appropriation of the avant-garde spirit of innovation, which are moments that largely define the positioning of her field of reference. This is evident from the first encounter with her works, which in their free, unencumbered visual combinatorics testify to the humor and irony of the distance to their own visual origins.
In fact, it seems that the visual elements of Duša's paintings become not the builders of a new modern political-social project, but eloquent linguistic elements that, precisely through their distance from their original visual context and uneasy non-contemporaneity, skilfully address the contemporary problems of ideology as a lack of politics, consumerism as a lack of emancipation and over-saturation of the visual field as a lack of communication.
Dusa Jesih, Tightened up, acrylic on canvas, polyptych 183x183cm, Brooklyn residence, NYC 2018
Dusa Jesih, Twilight Zone, acrylic on canvas, poliptych 122x122cm, Brooklyn residence, NYC 2018
Here, the presentation of the present project is symptomatic, both in terms of spatial and temporal placement. The One for All exhibition opens on the premises of the Trbovlje Workers' Home, the cultural temple of the iconic workers' town, which lost its original context, either in the form of a welfare state or as a socialist social project, a long time ago. Accordingly, from the collectivist slogan All for one, one for all, only its last part has been preserved, this time in an explicitly female version, which no longer believes in the self-evident gender neutrality of the emancipatory projects of the past. After the disintegration of modern utopias, we were left with a one-for-all, (again) atomized political subject, a unit that, as modular units, resilient constructivist builders of Duša's paintings, adapts to contexts and establishes new relationships with all the ingenuity of (neoliberal) combinatorics.
The exhibition One for All, whose opening subversively marks the May Day holidays in the paradigmatic cultural institution of political modernity, acts in its modernist garb as a kind of Trojan horse: it returns to the place where it supposedly belongs, but only to show the extreme consequences of a project that should belong to it. However, Duša's paintings do not do this in a preachy-moralistic way: despite the undoubted critical edge, her methodology is more in demonstration than in agitation and is fundamentally always a question of the resilience of the painterly language, as it testifies to its vitality and ability to address contexts beyond the isms that they serve as his immediate rear.
Kamosutra 02-19 | All in One, acrylic on canvas, poliptych 200x200cm, from Soloshow DDT Trbovlje, 2019
Dusa Jesih, One for all - All in one II2., from Soloshow DDT Trbovlje, 2019
Dusa Jesih, Desquared, acrylic on cavas, poliptych 180x180cm, from Soloshow DDT Trbovlje 2019
Dusa Jesih, Way out | One for All, acrylic on canvas, polyptych 160x180 cm, Brooklyn residence, NYC 2018
Kamosutra 01-18 | All in One, acrylic on canvas, poliptych 244x244cm, Brooklyn residence, NYC 2018
Kamosutra 02-19 | All in One, acrylic on canvas, poliptych 200x200cm, LJ 2019
Dusa Jesih, Desquared, acrylic on cavas, poliptych 180x180cm, 2018-19
Dusa Jesih, Subway | One for all - Photo series, NYC 2018
Dusa Jesih, Subway | One for all - Photo series, NYC 2018
The series of photographs presented at the exhibition One for All represents a novelty in Duša Jesih's other exhibition practice, but they certainly act as an insight into the motivations for certain choices made by the artist. The placement in the lower rooms of the industrial architecture of the New Gallery of Delavski dom Trbovlje, a former boiler house, supports their original motif, the walls of the New York subway. The photographs were taken during the artist's residency in New York when she "corrected" photographic views of bare facades and subway walls with montages of the motifs of her paintings. Duša Jesih replaced the missing graffiti and street art in her projections with the order of her neoconstructivist compositions. These, surprisingly, lend themselves perfectly to their new context, acting as a kind of visual mapping of the city, a modular consideration of the urban landscape and its dynamics. They are no more foreign to the walls of the subway than a map of underground lines. At the same time, these photomontages, in connection with the animation that directly precedes them before descending into the space, measure the utilitarian and synesthetic spirit of the basic constructivist gesture, which is the spiritus movens of the Soul's reflection in the visual. Vladimir Vidmar, DDT Trbovlje 2019
Dusa Jesih, Neighbourhood, Green Street - Brooklyn, NYC, from my Fasad Murals sketcbook, 2018
Dusa Jesih, Neighbourhood, Green Street II. - Brooklyn, NYC, from my Fasad Murals sketcbook, 2018
Dusa Jesih, 67-81 Kent Ave Williamsburg, from my Fasad Murals sketcbook, NYC 2018
Dusa Jesih, Last Frontier, from my Fasad Murals sketcbook, NYC 2018
Dusa Jesih, Desquared, acrylic on cavas, poliptych 180x180cm, 2018-19 | (Com)posing
Dusa Jesih, Tightened up | All in One - Gif Animation, NYC 2018
Kamosutra 01-18 | All in One - Gif Animation, NYC 2018
Dusa Jesih, Moving picture I. | All in One, 2018
Dusa Jesih, Moving picture II. | All in One, 2018
Dusa Jesih, Moving picture III. | All in One, 2018
Dusa Jesih, Avanti popolo | One for All, polyptych - All in One, NYC 2018
Ena za vse | One for all
Reduktivni slikarski jezik Duše Jesih, ki mu zlahka rekonstruiramo provenienco v dediščini konstruktivizma in neo-konstruktivizma, v sicer zelo ekspresivnem in podobarskem slovenskem slikarskem miljeju že na prvi pogled zbuja določeno neugodje in dvoumnost. To je moment, na katerem Jesihova spretno gradi. Kako razumeti njen izčiščen modernistični idiom v kontekstu sodobne umetnosti? Kot odgovor Jesihova pušča kar nekaj opornih točk za dekodiranje svoje slikarske geste.
Dvojnost odnosa do modernističnega izraza je v ospredju njenega premisleka: umetnica je kar eksplicitna glede referiranja na konstruktivistično dediščino, ki jo zavestno stopnjuje tudi z odprtim mešanjem (ali vsaj jasnim nakazovanjem le tega) gest slikarstva, arhitekture in oblikovanja. Hkrati je njena praksa otrok svojega časa, padca modernih meta-zgodb, razočaranja nad neoliberalno prilastitvijo avangardističnega duha inovacije, kar so momenti, ki v veliki meri opredeljujejo pozicioniranje njenega referenčnega polja. To je očitno tudi že pri prvem srečanju z njenimi deli, ki v svoji prosti, neobremenjeni vizualni kombinatoriki izpričujejo humornost in ironičnost distance do lastnega vizualnega izvora.
Pravzaprav se zdi, da postanejo vizualni elementi Dušinih slik ne gradbeniki novega modernega politično-socialnega projekta, temveč zgovorni jezikovni elementi, ki prav skozi svojo distanco do lastnega izvornega vizualnega konteksta in nelagodno nesočasnost spretno naslavljajo sodobne probleme ideologije kot manka politike, potrošništva kot manka emancipacije in prenasičenosti vizaulnega polja kot manka komunikacije.
Pri tem je simptomatična predstavitev pričujočega projekta, tako glede prostorske kot časovne umestitve. Razstava Ena za vse se odpira v prostorih Delavskega doma Trbovlje, kulturnega templja kultnega delavskega mesta, ki je svoj izvorni kontekst, bodisi v obliki welfare state bodisi kot socialističnega družbenega projekta, že zdavnaj izgubil. Temu skladno se je od kolektivističnega gesla Vsi za enega, eden za vse obdržal samo njegov zadnji del, tokrat v eksplicitno ženski različici, ki nič več ne verjame v samoumevno spolno nevtralnost emancipatornih projektov preteklosti. Po razkroju modernih utopij smo ostali z eno za vse, (ponovno) atomiziranim političnim subjektom, enoto, ki se kot modularne enote, rezilientni konstruktivistični gradbeniki Dušinih slik, z vso iznajdljivostjo (neoliberalne) kombinatorike prilagajajo kontekstov in vzpostavljajo vedno nove odnose.
Razstava Ena za vse, čigar otvoritev subverzivno obeležuje prvomajske praznike v paradigmatični kulturni instituciji politične moderne, deluje v svoji modernistični obleki kot svojevrsten trojanski konj: vrača se na kraj, kamor domnevno sodi, vendar samo zato, da bi pokazal skrajne konsekvence projekta, ki naj bi mu pripadal. Vendar Dušine slike tega ne počnejo na pridigarsko-moralističen način: kljub nedvomni kritiški osti, je njena metodologija bolj v demonstraciji kot v agitaciji in je v osnovi vedno vprašanje rezilientnosti slikarskega jezika, saj priča prav o njegovi vitalnosti in zmožnosti naslavljanja kontekstov onkraj izmov, ki mu služijo kot neposredno zaledje.
Serija fotografij, predstavljenih na razstavi Ena za vse, predstavljajo novost v siceršnji razstavni praksi Duše Jesih, vsekakor pa delujejo kot vpogled v motivacije za določene umetničine izbire. Umestitev v spodnje prostore industrijske arhitekture Nove galerije Delavskega doma Trbovlje, nekdanje kurilnice, podpira njihov izvorni motiv, stene newyorške podzemne železnice. Fotografije so nastale med umetničinim bivanjem na rezidenci v New Yorku, ko je fotografske poglede na gole fasade in stene podzemne "korigirala" z montažami motivov svojih slikarski del. Manjkajoče grafite in ulično umetnost Duša Jesih v svojih projekcijah nadomestila z redom svojih neokonstruktivističnih kompozicij. Te se, presenetljivo, odlično podajajo svojem novem kontekstu, delujejo kot svojevrstno vizualno mapiranje mesta, modularni premislek mestne krajine in njegove dinamike. Stenam podzemne železnice tako niso nič bolj tuji kot, recimo, zemljevid underground linij. Hkrati te fotomontaže, v navezovanju na animacijo, ki jim pred sestopom v prostor neposredno predhodi, merijo na utilitarni in sinestetični duh osnovne konstruktivistične geste, ki je spiritus movens Dušinega razmisleka v vizualnem.
Vladimir Vidmar 2019