iSmoke 2
Solo exhibition in CC Tobačna 001, Ljubljana, Slovenia

3. november 2011 - 4. december 2011
(Opening: Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 7 pm)

Central to Sašo Sedlaček's artistic practice are socially engaged themes dealing with trash, recycling, and technology, which the artist addresses with sharp-witted humor to comment on the harsh reality of global pollution. Sedlaček's latest project, iSmoke 2, follows his dedication to the above issues. Made of waste technology, it thematizes the increasingly socially frowned-upon act of smoking and its perpetrators - smokers. A laptop in standby mode with a built-in cigarette holder has the instruction "Light me a cigarette!!" written on the screen, and the operating system guides us through the process of fulfilling its wish.
The automaton's act of smoking in a place where visitors are forbidden to smoke unquestionably has a seed of rebellion in it, questioning as it does the ratio between permission and prohibition and raising the question how a machine that has been programmed to carry out a task can be obstructed.
(Alenka Trebušak)

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Supertrash
Retrospective Exhibition

Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts, Glavni trg 24, Slovenj Gradec
Opening: 11. november 2011 ob 19. uri

Free bus transport!
Departure from Ljubljana, the Tivoli Park parking lot, at 4:30 p.m.; expected departure from Slovenj Gradec at 10 p.m. Please book your reservation by Friday, 4 November 2011, 12 p.m., via email to mojca.zupanic1(AT)gmail.com

A retrospective exhibition of Sašo Sedlaček's work entitled Supertrash will open at the Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts in Slovenj Gradec on 11 November 2011. The exhibition will bring together for the first time the most distinctive of Sedlaček's projects created over the past 10 years. A retrospective catalogue featuring texts by Dr. Petja Grafenauer and Dr. Luka Omladič and designed by Studiobotas will accompany the exhibition.

"Do hairs, dirt, excrement, all these 'vile and worthless' things, have an idea of their own? What to do with all these unseemly and rejected things - with all this waste? How could we possibly treat them equally? This is Socrates's abyss, a refuse pit in fact, from which he diverts his gaze and which he would prefer to leave alone exactly where it is. But this is impossible, Parmenides reminds him. In some sense, wisdom begins precisely with waste; Socrates will have matured philosophically once he is able to reflect upon waste." (Luka Omladič)

The exhibition Supertrash features the projects Picnic on a Dump (Piknik na deponiji), Beggar (Žicar), Urban - woodenware vending machine (Urban - Avtomat za suho robo), Space Junk Spotting (Vesoljske smeti), The Ex, No Lego, Just Do It!, AcDcWc, The Big Switch Off (Veliki izklop) and others, all of which demonstrate Sašo Sedlaček's ability to reflect upon waste. Moreover, regardless of whether he deals with recycling faeces or analogue televisual waves, waste remains the key topic of Sedlaček's oeuvre.

"It is very clear where the interest of Sašo Sedlaček's art works lies. Recycling. (Re)use of the rejected. The improvement of the world and a warning that people in the West are not the only inhabitants of this planet. His projects shift between local and global problems of waste. The artist is interested in topical themes that fall into the category of the age-old efforts to improve human life. Fortunately, he does not tackle these issues in a naive, bigoted or moralistic manner, but rather with humour and incentive. His ideas are witty, creative and, above all, useful. I wonder why Ribnica has not yet started producing the Urban - woodenware vending machine. We should not be surprised at all if, in a few years, while strolling around BTC City - Ljubljana may well be just one of its districts by then - we happen upon a pricey lavatory that produces its own lighting, which is something that Sedlaček has already shown us with his AcDcWc lavatories." (Petja Grafenauer)



The exhibition will also be on display at the Jakopič Gallery in Ljubljana from 27 March to 13 May 2012.

Production of the exhibition : Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2011

Coproduction: Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti

Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Slovenj Gradec.
Media sponsor: Mladina