Istvan Ist Huzjan

Ištvan Išt Huzjan (b.1981 in Ljubljana) graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, department of painting in 2005. He founded his own book-publishing house 21st Century Books in 2006. In 2009 he completed an artist-in-residency program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. He works with the Galerie Mirko Mayer, Cologne, and Galerija Ganes Pratt, Ljubljana. He lives and works between Amsterdam and Ljubljana.

His solo exhibitions include: Vaterland, Galeria Piętro Wyżej, Katowice; The De Bruin-Heijns, Mirko Mayer Gallery, Cologne; Preview/Review, Galerija Ganes Pratt, Ljubljana; No Means No, Galerija Ganes Pratt; Don't forget anything!, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam; Jaz sem tisti večni otrok.., Galerija Meduza, Koper. He also exhibited at numerous group exhibitions: 6th Triennial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana; What's happening?, Mestna galerija, Nova Gorica; 28th Biennial of Graphic Arts, MGLC, Ljubljana; Rijksakademie Open, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam; Museum on the Streets, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana; A Third Look (The Multiplicity of Graphic Art Today), MGLC, Ljubljana.

The artwork consists of 100 plaster copies of a piece of igneous rock (hardened lava) that the artist had brought back from a trip to Iceland. Each plaster copy is white, its dimensions are 12 x 11 x 10 cm, and it weighs 250 g.

The entire body of the artwork was used to create the necessary circumstances to contextualize the artwork in the public sector? financial management in Slovenia. Instead of displaying the artwork the artist has stored it in a safety deposit box in the vault of the banks, whose majority shareholder is the Republic of Slovenia. The rent of the safety deposit box is being paid by the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, the main contemporary art institution in the Republic of Slovenia that is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia from the state budget.

An announcement explaining all this will appear in one of the daily newspapers a few days before the opening of the exhibition in Mala galerija.

What will be shown in the gallery space then are the newspaper announcement, ten empty display tables, a photocopied book on the process of the disappearance of the artwork, and a catalogue that brings it all together.

Istvan Ist Huzjan
Kurator: Bojana Piskur