Untitled
/1
- Untitled
- 2011
- metal can and wrapped paper bag
- 28 × 20 × 12,5 cm
In the multifarious, long-running oeuvre of Ivan Kožarić, sculpture can be perceived as a malleable notion, which the artist has challenged in a plethora of realized as well as conceptually proposed and/or non-realized projects. Presence and absence have always been interacting parameters that define the nature of Kožarić’s take on sculpture. Over the artist’s many decades of work, his approach has been to constantly rearrange forms, materials, and sizes. One recent work from his more than seven-decade artistic career consists of half-open metal cans for preserved vegetables. Into these openings the artist placed paper bags that would normally be used for carrying the cans home from the supermarket—or to dispose of them after their content’s use. Kožarić refrains from glorifying these products by transferring them to different or glossy media, as would be the case in pop art, instead preferring to simply hint at their use as short-lived everyday objects. Nevertheless, their preservation as artistic artefacts emphasizes their transfer—as ready-mades—into the realm of sculptural (re-)production. W.S.