29.08–08.11.2015
MECHELEN
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Ana Prvački

Serbian artist Ana Prvački (°1976) lives and works in Los Angeles. In her work, which includes visual art and performances, she uses a gently pedagogical and comedic approach in an attempt to reconcile ‘etiquette’ and ‘erotics’. Her interventions are meant to transform the viewer’s perception and experience of daily life and routine, providing solutions to our everyday problems, worries, and fears. Her work explores the social anxiety and comedic potential of the so-called faux pas: the breaking of social rules and etiquette, often by an outsider. In doing so, Prvački investigates the socio-political significance of welcoming the ‘other’.

​The Family Fig Tree (for the Utopians it’s important to see their future spouse naked before marrying them)

video, sound, fig tree, 2′ 34″
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

Fig leaves have played a significant role in the history of art, covering male and female sexual organs to neutralise the erotic charge of images. Prvački’s art explores ways of re-charging the erotic dimension in art, while addressing forms of social intercourse and protocol. In her piece for CONTOUR 7, she ironically plays with a social rule on the island of Utopia and subverts it, while paying respect to the artistic tradition of using fig leaves by placing a fig tree in front of her video. The work finds its point of synthesis in its audio component, which invites the listener into a subliminal trip back in time, covering one generation after another on a family tree and perhaps inviting us to contemplate a primordial scene in the Garden of Eden.