David Maljković
In his practice, David Maljković often creates tension between the procedures of exhibition display, which draw the viewer into the exhibition narrative, and the ones that are aimed at creating the estrangement effect. He creates unexpected, poetic, and humorous situations in order to throw visitors off balance. At first sight, things are not quite right – works are not exhibited “properly,” or the dimensions of pedestals are unexpected, and the awkward dimensions of the display constructions draw attention to the fact that just as the gallery is not a room but a white-cube space laden with references,
the pedestal is never just a neutral, “invisible” form on which the work is placed, but an ideological vector that attempts to freeze it in one finished form. The exhibition construction takes precedence over the works themselves, in an attempt to go past the fixed forms and “aura” of the individual works, and to bypass them by accumulation and strange encounters. In this case, the pedestal is placed above the displayed object, literally squeezing and stopping, rather than supporting it. The banana tree grows in the exhibition, and yet its growth is hampered by the display structure and both its provenance and its fate are left unclear. WHW
Quoted from: "My sweet little lamb: Sixth episode (Everything we see could also be otherwise)." Exhibition booklet edited by What, How & for Whom/WHW & Kathrin Rhomberg, Zagbreb: WHW, 2017. p. 88.
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