Emir Šehanović at Gallery Cu29

Artist: Emir Šehanović

Exhibition title: Synthetic Attraction

Venue: Gallery Cu29, Kapana, Plovdiv

Date: November 4 – December 3, 2023

Photography: All images copyright of Velizar Dimchev, Gallery Cu29 and the artist

No one puts owers on a ower’s grave
…But no one puts owers on a ower’s grave.

-Tom Waits

Searching for sense in the existence and mysteries of the universe, art often goes astray. It closes itself in the sphere of solitude and melancholy in which it becomes synonymous with passion and sublimity.

The history of art proves that renewal and ephemerality are models that gain prominence by revealing segments of life through still life. In visual art, still life oscillates between the beautiful and the unpleasant, the transcendental and the contemptible, it is a symbol of sorrow on account of those that have perished and at the same time the archetype of the hope for renewal of life. In such a nomenclature, a ower, not in the sense of an aesthetically appealing element of nature, but as a symbol of transience, deepens our understanding of the nature of seduction, beauty and withering, seen through the prism of physical and meaningful characteristics.

The legacy of the past through which the artist Emir Šehanović journeys in his oral adventure is imbued with senses re ecting the equilibrium between the spontaneity and obedience typical of the ikebana ower arranging practice, whose meaning, according to the ancient cultural tradition, promotes perfect harmony achieved through adaptation.

In a sterile space, under the guise of plastic sandblasted curtains which could be associated with shrouded corpses, there is a ower arrangement which causes slight fear, as well as excitement. Through each intimate encounter with this work, we feel the subtle pulse of life.

Emir Šehanović deals with the fundamental issues of the history of artistic representation and its structures in an analytical and metaphorical manner by using the morphology of the ower as an independent opulent microcosm which unfolds layer by layer. Through a set of reproduced media that the artist applies in his work entitled “No one puts owers on a ower’s grave”, combining quasi-natural materials, we come across details whose visual attraction constantly creates new constellations of forms. Nature is a complex whole, not to be reduced to its constructive aspects. Emir paints a poetic picture of nature as a sacred place, a place of privileged communication between our existence and what comes afterwards.

By broadening visual eld in his art practice, the artist applies the process of the digital postpro-duction of nature, and besides transposing the generating vision of reality, he provokes inspiring considerations regarding the hidden potential of the very atmosphere we are currently living in. In that sense, reanimating nature in a perfect visual harmony in this work calls for di erent interpreta-tions of freedom and con nement, but at the same time, that harmony serves as a warning that none of us ts perfectly in this world and that we all need to adjust somehow.

-Ivan Šuković

Emir Šehanović, Synthetic Attraction, 2023, exhibition view, Gallery Cu29, Kapana, Plovdiv

Emir Šehanović, Synthetic Attraction. Recontextualized art installation for Cu29 gallery (2023), originally presented at Space O+A Art Event – Tokyo, Japan. Polycaprolactone, artificial flowers, PVC fabric, neon tubes and aluminium pipes. Dimensions: 250cm x 130cm x 130cm

Emir Šehanović, Synthetic Attraction, 2023, exhibition view, Gallery Cu29, Kapana, Plovdiv

Emir Šehanović, Synthetic Attraction, 2023, video loop, 12min