Artist: TARWUK
Exhibition title: 20170621_141332 (2)
Curated by: Valentina Radoš
Venue: Museum of Fine Arts Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Date: December 14, 2017 – January 15, 2018
Photography: Damir Žižić / images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Museum of Fine Arts Osijek
The artist couple Bruno Pogačnik Wukodrakula and Ivana Vukšić have been working and exhibiting together since 2014 under a joint name Tarwuk representing therewith in terms of identity something different and up to now insufficiently known. The two people agreed to subject their singular I to plural we in order to function symbiotically as an authorial duo under a joint name. Let us briefly refer to the concrete title of the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Osijek: 20170621_141332 (2). It looks like a rebus whose meaning on one side frustratingly and insolvably shimmers without the authors’ explanation, while on the other its systematic unreadability is part of the meaning. Namely, artwork titles as well as the exhibition itself are intimately connected to the unique world of the authorial duo, expressed through language known only to them whereby the ‘Tarwuk’ process of naming is to be understood as Shamanic ritual. Naming something is like giving life to it – it is an eternally protected relationship between the artist and his work. However, the creation process is not limited just to Ivana and Bruno – the Tarwuk collective is envisaged not only as a duo, but comprises a wider union in the sense of broadening the dialogue because in the creation processes (which are fluid) their respective family members are invited and included. In that way the duo simultaneously functions also as a collective whereby individual contributions problematize and emblematize the authorship network with both biological and artistic binding agents. A complex system of materialized artefacts and multimedia impulses is a result of a free and intuitive creation process, unburdened by the authorial individual.
